Serum Aluminium in Alumina Exposed Workers

WERAWAN RUANGYUTTIKARN,Ph.D.*, PATTARAVADEE PONGRAVEEVONGSA,M.S.*, PRADIT WINITCHAKOON, M.D.**

Affiliation : * Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, **Provincial Chief Medicine Officer, Lamphun Province Health Office, Lamphun 51000, Thailand.

AbstractThis study was performed after skepticism occurred in 1994 when alumina, or aluminium oxide, was thought to be the cause of sickness and death for certain workers at the Northern Industrial Park, Lumphun province, Thailand. Zeeman-graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometric method has been developed to quantify the aluminium (AI) levels in the serum of 399 workers and 500 blood = donors. The results showed that AI levels in the directly (n 62) exposed workers was significantly = = different from the indirectly exposed (n 130) and non-exposed (n 207) workers and donors. How ever, symptoms found in the directly exposed workers were not significantly different from those in the indirectly exposed workers. In addition, a high percentage of headache and fatigue found in both directly and indirectly exposed workers suggested that more than one hazard could be involved in the incidence of alumina.

Keywords : Alumina, Aluminium, Directly and Indirectly Exposed Workers

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