Biological Monitoring of Workers Exposed to Mercury Vapour

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Abstract
The kinetics of mercury uptake and excretion have been investigated by numerous authors. Their results indicate that there is a slow, small and variable excretion of mercury into the urine and the half-life of this excretion is such that urinary mercury concentrations can only reflect average uptake over the previous 2–4 months. On the other hand, inhaled mercury is rapidly transferred to the circulating blood: the kinetics of this process are such that the concentration of mercury in blood reflects exposure and uptake over the previous few days. It is concluded that both urinary and blood mercury concentrations are useful measures for monitoring mercury uptake, but the one to be selected should be related to the pattern of exposure and the results interpreted with the relative kinetics in mind.

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