| Summary: | 碩士 === 長榮大學 === 職業安全與衛生學系碩士班 === 98 === Electric plating and construction industries are the representative professions of hexavalent chromium (Cr6+) exposure. How to prevent the workers in these industries from health hazards due to Cr6+ exposure is an important issue of occupational health. Because dermal exposure is one of the main route of Cr6+ exposure, the objective of this study is to explore the effectiveness of usage of hand cream with vitamin C on the reduction of Cr6+ exposure for the workers. Ten workers were recruited from an electroplating plant and a construction workplace in the study. Each worker was asked to apply the hand cream before and during the work on every day for five consecutive days. Normally a worker applied the hand cream about six times on a workday. The urine samples of the workers were collected before, during and after the work shifts in five consecutive days. In order to make a comparison, the urine samples of the workers without using the hand cream on other workdays were also collected before and after the work shifts for 2~3 days. Air samples were taken in the workplaces to measure airborne exposure. Skin wiping samples were also taken on 2~3 days before the workers using the hand cream to assess the workers’ hands exposure to Cr6+. The amount of Cr6+ of the skin wiping samples were analyzed by ultra violet-visible spectroscopy (UV/Vis). The concentration of total chromium of the urine samples were analyzed by atomic absorption spectrometer (AA). Based on the measurements of the total chromium in the urine samples from the workers with Cr6+ exposure who used the hand cream with vitamin C on about ten continuous days in the electroplating plant and the construction workplace, the concentration change of the total chromium in the urine samples showed that the hand cream with vitamin C tended to reduce the skin absorption of Cr6+ and had the effectiveness of protection from Cr6+ exposure. However, when a worker did not have a high cumulative dose of Cr6+ and only had a low concentration exposure to Cr6+, the effectiveness of total chromium reduction became not significant. Because the sample sizes of this study was small and the exposure concentration of Cr6+ was not high enough, the power of the study results was not sufficient. More research on the reduction of Cr6+ exposure for the workers using the hand cream with vitamin C will be necessary.
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