De Luca Hélène P, Borgatta Myriam, Wild Pascal, Concha Lozano Nicolas, Plateel Gregory, Hopf Nancy B
Unisanté, University Center for Primary Care and Public Health & University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Swiss Centre for Applied Human Toxicology (SCAHT), Missionsstrasse 64, 4055, Basel, Switzerland.
Arch Toxicol. 2025 Jun 5. doi: 10.1007/s00204-025-04094-0.
Organic solvents such as propylene glycol ethers (PGEs) represents more than 20 different substances and are incorporated in thousands of commercial and professional products. Two PGEs commonly used in Europe and found mainly in cleaning and water-based paint products are propylene glycol ethyl ether (PGEE) and propylene glycol propyl ether (PGPE). Given their volatile properties, inhalation is the most common route of exposure. The aim of this study was to characterize human toxicokinetics following PGEE and PGPE inhalation exposure. The participants were exposed (4 h) at rest to a single PGE (between 15 and 35 ppm) under controlled conditions and blood, urine, and exhaled breath were collected. Our study shows that both PGEs were rapidly detected in blood (absorption rate: 0.01 µg/mL/hppm) and elimination was more important through urine (half-life: 1 h) than exhaled breath (half-life: 2 min). We also evaluated the impact of a moderate physical activity (30 min, 100 W) during exposure. A significant increase of blood absorption (absorption rate: 0.03 µg/mL/hppm) and internal dose (increase of 48%) was observed. Our results confirm that both PGEs are easily absorbed at rest and even faster with a moderate physical activity. The biomonitoring approach we have developed here allow the measurement of the "real" internal dose in workers handling these solvents. The existing occupational exposure limits do not consider workload, which may lead to their underestimation. Therefore, we recommend the use of biomonitoring for future studies and the consideration of physical workload for future exposure limits settings as an important parameter for risk assessment.
诸如丙二醇醚（PGEs）之类的有机溶剂包含20多种不同物质，并被用于数千种商业和专业产品中。在欧洲常用且主要存在于清洁产品和水性涂料中的两种PGEs是丙二醇乙醚（PGEE）和丙二醇丙醚（PGPE）。鉴于其挥发性，吸入是最常见的接触途径。本研究的目的是描述吸入PGEE和PGPE后人体的毒代动力学特征。参与者在受控条件下静息暴露（4小时）于单一PGE（浓度在15至35 ppm之间），并采集血液、尿液和呼出气体。我们的研究表明，两种PGEs在血液中均能快速检测到（吸收速率：0.01 μg/mL/hppm），且通过尿液（半衰期：1小时）的消除比通过呼出气体（半衰期：2分钟）更为显著。我们还评估了暴露期间适度体育活动（30分钟，100瓦）的影响。观察到血液吸收（吸收速率：0.03 μg/mL/hppm）和体内剂量显著增加（增加48%）。我们的结果证实，两种PGEs在静息时易于吸收，在适度体育活动时吸收甚至更快。我们在此开发的生物监测方法能够测量接触这些溶剂的工人的“真实”体内剂量。现有的职业接触限值未考虑工作量，这可能导致其被低估。因此，我们建议在未来研究中使用生物监测，并在设定未来接触限值时将体力工作量作为风险评估的重要参数加以考虑。
