Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU): Human Biomonitoring Guidance Values Derived for Dimethylformamide

Within the European Joint Program on Human Biomonitoring HBM4EU, human biomonitoring guidance values (HBM-GVs) for the general population (HBM-GV(GenPop)) or for occupationally exposed adults (HBM-GV(Worker)) are derived for prioritized substances including dimethylformamide (DMF). The methodology to derive these values that was agreed upon within the HBM4EU project was applied. A large database on DMF exposure from studies conducted at workplaces provided dose–response relationships between biomarker concentrations and health effects. The hepatotoxicity of DMF has been identified as having the most sensitive effect, with increased liver enzyme concentrations serving as biomarkers of the effect. Out of the available biomarkers of DMF exposure studied in this paper, the following were selected to derive HBM-GV(Worker): total N-methylformamide (tNMF) (sum of N-hydroxymethyl-N-methylformamide and NMF) and N-acetyl-S-(N-methylcarbamoyl)cysteine (AMCC) in urine. The proposed HBM-GV(Worker) is 10 mg·L(−1) or 10 mg·g(−1) creatinine for both biomarkers. Due to their different half-lives, tNMF (representative of the exposure of the day) and AMCC (representative of the preceding days’ exposure) are complementary for the biological monitoring of workers exposed to DMF. The levels of confidence for these HBM-GV(Worker) are set to “high” for tNMF and “medium-low” for AMCC. Therefore, further investigations are required for the consolidation of the health-based HBM-GV for AMCC in urine.