[Risk factor benzene (author's transl)].

Nearly one hundred years ago clinical and epidemiological studies have already assigned benzene as a markedly haematotoxic substance. Nowadays benzene is known as an important professional noxa, which is straight off directed against the haematopoietic system, essentially to a dose-time-effect. By this it can be taken as a model also for other noxious substances. Similar solvents often contain so-called "hidden benzene", that means not declared benzene, so that the consumer don't know what dangerous substance are available for his personal use. Impairment caused by benzene mostly are manifested earliest after months, years or for tens of years, and the point is, that these haematopoietic disorders are irreversible disturbances of the haematopoietic stem cell compartment. The consequence of this fact is a deep involvement of the proliferation of the erythro-, mono-, granulo- and thrombopoietic cell lines, mostly with the predominance of one of these myeloproliferative cell systems. In the further progression of the impairments due to benzene three different clinical pictures can be observed: the aplastic bone marrow syndrome (i.e. aplastic anemia), the haematopoietic dysplasia (i.e. preleukemia) and the acute leukemias (with the subtypes erythroleukosis, myeloblastic-promyelocytic or myelomonocytic from respectively). Also the transition from one clinical picture to another is possible.