Indoor glutaraldehyde levels in the endoscope disinfecting room and subjective symptoms among workers.

We measured the environmental glutaraldehyde (GA) levels during the disinfection of endoscopes and also investigated the subjective symptoms of the workers engaged in that work. At 6 hospitals in the Tokyo and Kanagawa area, 8 rooms for endoscope washing and disinfecting the endoscopy equipment were surveyed. The geometric mean environmental GA levels in the 8 rooms were 1.3 to 19.6 ppb. The personal exposure levels at the time of replacing the antiseptic solution containing GA in two of the disinfecting rooms were 94.2 and 84.9 ppb. Subjective symptoms such as ophthalmic, nasal, respiratory, pharyngeal symptoms and nausea were more prevalent among workers than controls as evidenced from the questionnaire survey.