Introduction and Objective:

The Conservation and Restoration sector has not yet been approached by Occupational Health in a complete or exhaustive way, so that there are several knowledge gaps.

The authors aimed to collect and summarize all the information they found on the topic, in the form of a Scoping Review.

The main risks associated with Arsenic are distributed across several medical contexts, albeit with different consensuses, in neurology; cardiovascular system; reproduction/ obstetrics; pediatrics; imune system; nephrology; oncology; dermatology; hematology; pneumology; otorhinolaryngology; gastroenterology and endocrinology.

Methodology:

The research ocorred at january 2019, using SCOPUS, PubMed/ MedLine, Web of Science, Science Direct, Academic Search Complete, CINALH, Database of Abstracts and Reviews, Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Nursing and Allied Health Collection, MedicLatina and RCAAP. There were also analyzed documents provided by experts in the field and with the capacity to respond to the research question.

Content / Results:

A Danish team dosed Arsenic in books from the 16th and 17th centuries, used as a green dye. An article was also found describing the restoration of a large painting, where pigments with arsenic were suspected.

Discussion:

With so little bibliography on the medical risks of Arsenic in Conservators- Restorers, the authors chose to insert in this section some data regarding other professionals who may also contact this agent. Among these, the artists who elaborate (or have elaborated in the past) works of art with pigments with Arsenic, may be the most adequate, although also on these the bibliography is reduced. It is believed that famous painters were very exposed to Arsenic; notably Rubens, Renoir, Duffy and Klee.

At present there are also other professions where there is some contact with this agent, as in the glass industry, for exemple.

Limitations:

The authors made efforts to try to make their research exhaustive but, once completed, they realized that they did not find relevant data on the dosage of Arsenic in Conservation and Restoration workplaces in general, much less in the various subsectors, nor did they indicate which techniques are possible to use and which are preferred, as well as for the biological evaluation. No articles were found with descriptions of collective or individual protection measures, even in a generic way.

Conclusions:

Arsenic has long been known to cause serious harm. However, the Conservation and Restoration sector is still very little studied in the context of Occupational Health and the risks of eventual contact with Arsenic are no exception. It would be very pertinent to have motivated teams to study this sector and to fill some of the limitations found, not developed in the international literature.

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