Comparison of Congener Patterns and TEQs in environmental and human samples
Marianne Rappolder, Nina Brüders, Christa Schröter-Kermani
(2005) Organohalogen Compounds 67, 2086-2089
Abstract
WHO has initiated the re-evaluation of toxic equivalency factors (TEFs) for dioxins and related compounds based on recent studies. New TEFs do not only improve the risk assessment for humans. The TEF-concept is also used in samples from other matrices. Results published for environmental samples are given as concentrations of homologues, 2,3,7,8 substituted congeners or TEQs calculated with factors of different TEF-concepts and with different approaches for the limit of quantification. For this reason it is very difficult to compare the data from published studies.
For decades PCDD/PCDF have been subject of intensive monitoring programmes in Germany. The analytical results of these programmes are documented in the German POP-DIOXIN DATABASE on congener-specific basis including metadata with compartment specific information. This allows flexible assessment of data. Here, we critically compare the results of environmental and human samples calculated as concentrations, WHO-TEQ and ITEQ.