Urinary chlorophenols in sawmill workers.

The concentration of urinary chlorophenol was assayed for 230 sawmill workers. Information on the work tasks was obtained through questionnaires from occupational health centres. The workers were divided into three groups on the basis of the type of exposure: (1) those with skin absorption as the main route, (2) those with skin and respiratory route of equal importance and (3) those with respiratory tract as the main route. The concentrations of urinary chlorophenol were higher in workers with skin absorption as the main route (median concentration: 7.8 mumol l-1; range 0.1 to 210.9 mumol l-1) than in those with both routes of equal importance (1.4 mumol l-1; range 0.1 to 47.8 mumol l-1, P less than 0.001) or in those with mainly respiratory route (0.9 mumol l-1; range 0.1 to 13.3 mumol l-1, P less than 0.001). The urinary chlorophenol concentration was below 15 mumol l-1 in all workers with the lungs as the main absorption route. In nine out of 112 workers whose main absorption route was the skin, the urinary chlorophenol values were above 50 mumol l-1. Six were loaders when the through-dipping method was used. In two of them urinary chlorophenol concentrations were as high as 170.8 and 210.9 mumol l-1. These results emphasize the need to develop and use simple methods of protection against skin contact with chlorophenols.