TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2002//
TI  - Neurobehavioral disturbances arising from occupational toluene exposure
JO  - American journal of industrial medicine
A1  - Chouanière, Dominique
A1  - Wild, Pascal
A1  - Fontana, Jean-Marc
A1  - Héry, Michel
A1  - Fournier, Maryvonne
A1  - Baudin, Vincent
A1  - Subra, Isabelle
A1  - Rousselle, Dominique
A1  - Toamain, Jean-Paul
A1  - Saurin, Sylvie
A1  - Ardiot, Marie-Rose
SP  - 77
EP  - 88
VL  - 41
IS  - 2
N2  - BACKGROUND: Neurotoxicity of long-term exposure to toluene is known at higher levels than 50 ppm and is suspected at lower levels. METHODS: A cross-sectional study carried out in two printing plants on 129 blue collar workers explored such a low level exposure of toluene. With 231 samples of ambient air, toluene concentration was estimated from 0 to 18 ppm in Plant A (offset) and from 2 to 27 ppm in Plant B (heliogravure). Outside any period of acute exposure, the workers answered a self-administered questionnaire on neurotoxic symptoms, EUROQUEST, and performed six psychometric tests on a computer-assisted version of battery NES. RESULTS: After adjustment for confounders, we found significant relationships only between present exposure and Digit Span Forwards (DSF) performance (decrement is 1 digit for 40 ppm, P=0.04) and Digit Span Backwards (DSB) performance (decrement is 1 digit for 25 ppm, P=0.01). Neurotoxic symptoms were not significantly correlated with current exposure. No association was found between estimated cumulative exposure and either psychometric performances or neurotoxic symptoms. CONCLUSION: In this study, low present exposure levels to toluene were associated with decrements of memory test performances.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0271-3586
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/
ID  - ref1
ER  -