[Biomonitoring for occupational medicine].

Biomonitoring is an essential occupational-medical instrument for assessing the exposure of chemical agents of workers. It is an integral part of preventive medical examinations as far as established analytical procedures and values for evaluating biomonitoring results are available. The DFG Senate Commission for the Investigation of Health Hazards of Chemical Compounds in the Work Area has published values for evaluating biomonitoring results. Those values are health related values such as the Biological Tolerance Value (BAT) and descriptive values such as the "Biologischer Arbeitsstoff-Referenzwert" (BAR) and Exposure Equivalents for Cancerous Substances (EKA), respectively. Moreover the combination of acceptance values and tolerance values derived by the Committee on Hazardous Substances (AGS) from exposure-risk-relations with the EKA allow the deduction of risk-related values too. The European Biological Limit Value (BLV) and the Biological Guidance Value are also important in the countries of the European Union. The results of a biological monitoring represent person-related data and therefore are subject to the rules on professional confidentiality that apply to physicians.