Concept for the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Substances in Population-Based Human Biomonitoring

Klaus-Michael Wollin, Petra Apel, Yvonni Chovolou, Ulrike Pabel, Thomas Schettgen, Marike Kolossa-Gehring, Claudia Röhl and On behalf of the Human Biomonitoring Commission of the German Environment Agency
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Klaus-Michael Wollin: Formerly Public Health Agency of Lower Saxony, 30449 Hannover, Germany
Petra Apel: German Environment Agency (UBA), 14195 Berlin, Germany
Yvonni Chovolou: North Rhine-Westphalia Office of Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection, 45659 Recklinghausen, Germany
Ulrike Pabel: German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), 10589 Berlin, Germany
Thomas Schettgen: Institute for Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany
Marike Kolossa-Gehring: German Environment Agency (UBA), 14195 Berlin, Germany
Claudia Röhl: Department of Environmental Health Protection, State Agency for social Services (LAsD) Schleswig-Holstein, 24534 Neumünster, Germany
On behalf of the Human Biomonitoring Commission of the German Environment Agency: Members as listed below in Appendix A.

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 12, 1-13

Abstract: The Human Biomonitoring (HBM) Commission at the German Environment Agency holds the opinion that for environmental carcinogens for which no exposure levels can be assumed and are harmless to health, health-based guidance values corresponding to the classical definition of the HBM-I or HBM-II value cannot be established. Therefore, only reference values have been derived so far for genotoxic carcinogens from exposure data of the general population or subpopulations. The concept presented here opens up the possibility of performing health risk assessments of carcinogenic substances in human biomonitoring, and thus goes decisively beyond the purely descriptive statistical reference value concept. Using the presented method, quantitative dose descriptors of internal exposure can be derived from those of external exposure, provided that sufficient toxicokinetic information is available. Dose descriptors of internal exposure then allow the simple estimate of additional lifetime cancer risks for measured biomarker concentrations or, conversely, of equivalent concentrations for selected risks, such as those considered as tolerable for the general population. HBM data of chronic exposures to genotoxic carcinogens can thus be used to assess the additional lifetime cancer risk referring to the general population and to justify and prioritize risk management measures.

Keywords: human biomonitoring; carcinogens; risk assessment; internal exposure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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