This last category included the functions that were less prevalent in the study population, including journalists, medical staff, wastewater management teams, and soil remediation teams. Finally, the five zones of presence on-site from the questionnaire were regrouped into three zones in the analyses: <50 m (immediately on the site of the train accident); 50–250 m; and >250 m. Selleckchem BMS-734016 This last category corresponded to the perimeter of the evacuation zone that was determined for the residents. To facilitate an efficacious medical assistance to the emergency responders after the biomonitoring study, a communication plan was established in close collaboration with the communication

departments of the WIV-ISP and of the Federal Public Service Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment. Apart from a mailing to each participant

with their individual value, it envisaged an all-embracing communication to the other stakeholders including recommendations to authorities and various information sessions for the individual participants and their occupational physicians. In addition, the Sotrastaurin solubility dmso plan provided that participants with a high CEV value got a home visit by a medical practitioner to discuss their results. In total, there were 841 emergency responders (Table 2) with measures of CEV (blood), cotinine (urine), spatial and temporal information of the presence on-site between May 4–10 (questionnaire), and for whom the function was known. This study population why was mainly composed of fire-fighters (54%) and police (34%); the three other groups (army, civil protection and ‘others’) together representing only 12%. The majority (89.5%) of the participants were men, with the highest proportions (95% or more) in the fire-fighters, the civil protection, and the army. In the police workers and in the group ‘others’, men were somewhat less represented (70.8% till 78.3%). Median ages were comparable among the different functions, varying between 35 and 46 years. Of the 841 emergency

responders, 206 (24.5%) were classified as ‘smokers’. The proportion of smokers was comparable among the different functions, ranging between 22.7% and 25.3%. Table 3 presents the CEV concentrations in the non-smokers, after extrapolation to the time of the accident, i.e., May 4. Twenty-six percent of the non-smokers exceeded the reference value of 10 pmol/g globin. The overall distribution of CEV concentrations in the non-smokers, however, remained within the ranges as described for smokers in the literature, the 95th percentile and the maximum value being 73 and 452 pmol/g globin, respectively. CEV levels differed clearly according to function with median values ranging from 2.6 pmol/g globin among the army till 15 pmol/g globin among the civil protection workers. The civil protection workers appeared to be the mostly exposed with almost 60% of results above the reference value, which is two times more than the proportion of increased CEV levels in fire-fighters or the group ‘others’.