Immune Disorders in Children Exposed to Airborne Benzene and Phenol

Introduction: Motor transport exhausts contain more than 250 chemicals, including benzene and phenol. Inhalation exposure to the latter can induce immune disorders in children. Objective: To analyze immune disorders in children exposed to airborne benzene and phenol in the area with heavy traffic. Materials and methods: The objects of the study included ambient air of the observation and reference areas and two respective groups of 286 and 97 preschoolers. Blood levels of benzene and phenol were assayed by gas chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography, respectively. The established differences between the groups were tested for statistical significance using Student’s t-test and Z-test. The Pearson’s goodness-of-fit test (χ2) was used to determine normality of the quantitative data. Results: In 2019–2022, average annual concentrations of benzene and phenol (n = 368) in the high traffic area demonstrated up to a 3.5- and 3.26-fold excess of the maximum allowable concentration (MAC), while in the reference area, they were 0.91 and 0.58 of the annual MAC (n = 268), respectively. Due to long-term inhalation exposure to benzene and phenol, blood levels of the latter in the observation group were 2.3 and 2 times higher than in the controls, respectively. The findings were verified by statistical cause-and-effect relationships between ambient concentrations of benzene and phenol and their blood levels in children. Conclusion: We established an imbalance of cell differentiation phenotypes, elevated production of immunoglobulins G specific to benzene and phenol, and stress of the key adaptation compartments.