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Mercury concentrations in blood from Danish dentists
Author(s) -
MÖLLERMADSEN BJARNE,
HANSEN JENS C.,
KRAGSTRUP JAKOB
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
european journal of oral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.802
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1600-0722
pISSN - 0909-8836
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0722.1988.tb01408.x
Subject(s) - mercury (programming language) , atomic absorption spectroscopy , danish , mercury exposure , medicine , dentistry , zoology , chemistry , physiology , environmental chemistry , biology , biomonitoring , linguistics , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , computer science , programming language
Abstract — Blood samples from a group of 130 dentists and a control group of 40 blood‐donors were analyzed by cold vapor atomic absorption spectrophotometry in order to evaluate the extent of mercury exposure. The median blood concentration of mercury was 4.0 (range: 1.2–19.2) μg/1 for dentists and 2.0 (1.1–4.6) μg/1 for controls (2 P <0.01). Practice characteristics obtained in a questionnaire showed no statistically significant relationship to blood mercury, but 49 dentists having one or more fish meals per wk, had a median concentration of mercury, which was 47% higher than dentists seldomly consuming fish (2 P <0.01). It was concluded that none of the examined dentists had blood concentrations above the level (35 μg Hg/1) associated with the hygienic threshold limit.