Bioaccessibility of pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls from house dust: in-vitro methods and human exposure assessment

Abstract

Semi-volatile chemicals like pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) tend to accumulate in house dust. This may result in residues of some parts per million (p.p.m.), closely associated with health impairments and diseases like cancer. To explain these associations, we must establish whether a relevant absorption from house dust into human organisms occurs, and most crucially the release of chemicals, that is, their bioaccessibility. Digestive as well as dermal bioaccessibilities were examined using in-vitro methods. On average, the digestive bioaccessibility was B40% for the pesticides and B60% for the PCB. The dermal penetration availability reached B60% for the pesticides and B70% for the PCB (percentages of the concentrations in the dust). Based on the bioaccessibility, an estimate of internal exposure was calculated and expressed as percentages of acceptable or tolerable daily intake (ADI/TDI) values. Exposure via the respiratory tract proved to be very low. Exposure via the digestive tract had maximum values of 4% for pesticides and 12% for PCB. Dermal exposure was much higher. Even for average concentrations in house dust (E0.5 p.p.m.), children exposed to DDT and PCB showed up to 300% of the ADI/TDI values, and adults about 60%. With high concentrations of contaminants in house dust, the maximum doses absorbed through the skin reached 5000%.

Environmental Exposure of the Adult French Population to Permethrin

“…This result may be easily explained by the higher permethrin concentrations in indoor air than in outdoor air (Table IV) This research also appears to indicate that dermal contact with dust and indirect dust ingestion constitute the main exposure pathways to permethrin. This result is consistent with the study performed by Ertl et al (15) on chemical exposure due to house dust in Germany. Indeed, they found that permethrin exposure was higher by dermal contact, followed by indirect dust ingestion, and, at much lower levels, by inhalation.…”

“…(29) They were also consistent with values used by other studies for the calculation of dermal exposure. (15,35) Finally, indoor times (Ti j ) were consistent with most estimates in other studies, such as the European EX-POLIS study (41) and the American NHAPS study, (42) which reported estimates of indoor times between 21 and 23.5 hours per day. These results might indicate that concentration data were the most sensitive parameters in exposure calculations.…”

“…Environmental exposure to permethrin has been documented in several studies. (5,(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21) However, most of these studies were performed on child populations and, to our knowledge, none have provided exposure estimates in France. This work aims to investigate the chronic environmental exposure of the adult French population to permethrin.…”

‘Towards a unified approach for the determination of the bioaccessibility of organic pollutants’

“…soil, fish and dust). Critically, OCPs are structurally very different to the more polar compounds which are representative of modern pesticides (Ertl and Butte, 2012;Guo et al, 2008;Quiros-Alcala et al, 2012) which may make these findings less transferable to more modern formulations. This represents a significant knowledge gap that needs to be addressed.…”

“…Oral bioaccessibility studies of dusts have investigated a range of organic contaminants such as PCBs, OCPs, PBDEs and phthalate esters respectively (Ertl and Butte, 2012;Kang et al, 2012Kang et al, , 2013Wang et al, 2013d). Wang et al (2013b) performed a risk assessment of OCPs suggesting dust ingestion as a major route to total OCP exposure for children.…”