Evaluation and quality assurance for sampling and analysis of airborne pyrogen containing substances in working environment

Status:

ongoing

Aims:

Airborne biological material (bioaerosols), among them endotoxins, can cause adverse health effects under repeated or constant exposure to increased concentration in the working environment. Besides cough, fever and flulike symptoms are inflammation and reduction of lung function potential consequences. To estimate the risk of health effects in work environments, the concentration of endotoxins is determined by sampling air on the workplace on filters and analysis in the laboratory. Goal of the project “Endotoxin standard” is the evaluation, standardization and quality assurance of procedures for sampling and analysis of airborne pyrogen containing sub-stances in working environment. Procedures for the production of reproducible and standardized air samples will be established. With these procedures for the evaluation of pyrogen concentrations in working environments can be evaluated and adapted. Subsequently interlaboratory trials can be conducted to assure quality standards. Thus the risk assessment for work places can be improved and the evaluation of working environment and safety procedures can be enhanced in future.

Activities/Methods:

In the presented study, a standardized procedure for the production of reproducible and standardized pyrogen containing air samples will be established, evaluated and standard operating procedures created. To simulate different loads of endotoxins in work environ-ments, a bioaerosol chamber will be used to produce de-fine concentrations of bioaerosols in the air. With the produced standardized samples, the influence of transportation and storage will be analyzed to enable quality control between sample taking and analyzation. To verify the quality in sample analysis, interlaboratory trials are requested. Based on the previous results standard operating procedures for production of samples and conduction of the trials will be provided. These procedures will be established, tested and made ready for action in the tested bioaerosol system.

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