Biomonitoring Equivalents for interpretation of silver biomonitoring data in a risk assessment context

Silver is widely used as an antimicrobial agent in both ionic and nanoparticle forms, and general population exposure to silver can occur through the presence of trace levels in foods and dusts, through dermal contact with treated textiles, from use of wound care products, and other sources. Biomonitoring for silver in blood or urine in persons in the general population is being conducted by the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS). Tolerable exposure guidance values for silver designed to prevent adverse effects of excess exposure are available from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (an oral reference dose, or RfD), from the United States Food and Drug Administration (a draft provisional tolerable intake, or TI) and from literature evaluations of recent data on responses to nanoparticle silver (a recommended tolerable daily intake, or TDI). A current physiologically-based pharmacokinetic model is used to estimate Biomonitoring Equivalents (BEs) for silver, which are steady-state biomarker concentrations consistent with the RfD, provisional TI, or recommended TDI (BERfD, BETI, or BETDI, respectively). The BE values based on silver in whole blood range from 0.2 to 0.9 μg/L. BE values for silver in urine were not derived due to low confidence in the predicted steady-state urinary silver excretion rates. Comparison of general population biomonitoring data from Canada to the derived BE values indicate that general population exposure levels are generally below levels consistent with current risk assessment-derived exposure guidance values.