Biological Fluids as a Source of Information on the Exposure of Man to Environmental Chemical Agents

The human body is exposed to a variety of environmental pollutants. Many chemical compounds, including volatile organochlorine compounds and metals, have a harmful effect on the tissues and organs of the human body, in many cases causing irreversible damage and illnesses. In order to assess the degree of occupational hazard, it has become more and more common to determine the concentrations of chemical substances or their metabolites in biological fluids (i.e., in urine, blood, or less often, in human milk, bile, saliva, and sperm). However, in order to determine concentrations levels of trace components in biological fluids such as urine, blood, milk, bile, saliva, or sperm, the samples collected have to be prepared for the final analysis because their matrix is so complex as to preclude direct determination of the analytes by any analytical method available. This article contains the literature data on: analyte isolation and/or enrichment techniques from samples of biological fluids prior to the final determination step; and final determination techniques for a variety of compounds, both organic and inorganic, being determined in the above samples. The data include both the primary pollutants that found their way into the human body as a result of environmental and occupational exposure and the products of their conversion (metabolism) in the organism.