Biomonitoring of firefighting forces: a review on biomarkers of exposure to health-relevant pollutants released from fires

ABSTRACT

Occupational exposure as a firefighter has recently been classified as a carcinogen to humans by International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Biomonitoring has been increasingly used to characterize exposure of firefighting forces to contaminants. However, available data are dispersed and information on the most relevant and promising biomarkers in this context of firefighting is missing. This review presents a comprehensive summary and critical appraisal of existing biomarkers of exposure including volatile organic compounds such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, several other persistent other organic pollutants as well as heavy metals and metalloids detected in biological fluids of firefighters attending different fire scenarios. Urine was the most characterized matrix, followed by blood. Firefighters exhaled breath and saliva were poorly evaluated. Overall, biological levels of compounds were predominantly increased in firefighters after participation in firefighting activities. Biomonitoring studies combining different biomarkers of exposure and of effect are currently limited but exploratory findings are of high interest. However, biomonitoring still has some unresolved major limitations since reference or recommended values are not yet established for most biomarkers. In addition, half-lives values for most of the biomarkers have thus far not been defined, which significantly hampers the design of studies. These limitations need to be tackled urgently to improve risk assessment and support implementation of better more effective preventive strategies.

KEYWORDS:

• Occupational exposure
• human biomonitoring
• firefighters
• fire emissions
• biomarkers of exposure
• health risks

Acknowledgments

This work received support by UIDB/50006/2020, UIDP/50006/2020, LA/P/0008/2020, and through the project PCIF/SSO/0090/2019 by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior (MCTES) through national funds. The authors would also like to thank to FCT and European Union through Fundo Social Europeu (FSE) which supported the scientific contract CEEC-Individual 2017 Program Contract CEECIND/03666/2017 and the PhD grant 2020.07394.BD, respectively.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study. The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article [and/or] its supplementary materials.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10937404.2023.2172119

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the project PCIF/SSO/0017/2018 by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior (MCTES) through national funds.