Organophosphate flame retardants, especially Tri-Cresyl-Phosphate (TCP), are found in aircraft cabin air. They are strongly suspected to be related with aerotoxic syndrome that affects aircraft crews. Exposure information is stored in hair structure during hair synthesis and therefore hair matrix is a powerful biomonitoring tool to assess human exposure to xenoniotics over several months. Analytical protocol was developed and validated to accurately measure level of 5 TCP isomers in hair matrix. The method was applied to investigate TCP exposure of crew members (N=46) and non-crew control group (N=35). A threshold value is proposed to attest for over-exposure to TCP.
This paper is part of: "2017 International Aircraft Cabin Air Conference : Conference Proceedings". In: Journal of Health and Pollution, Vol. 9, No. 24 (Dec. 2019)