History and Objectives: Lead poisoning is a major public hazard. Determination of lead in blood is expensive and time-consuming in recent leads poisoning exposures.

Materials and Methods: We studied the relation between the concentration of lead in blood and erythrocyte protoporphyrin in blood in the 857 subjects. Blood lead concentration was measured by atomic absorption spectrometry. Cut off points was 0.68 micromol/L. Erythrocyte protoporphyrin was determined by spectrofluorometric procedure, cut off points was 0.53 micromol/L. We calculated the sensitivity, specificity, the positive predictive value and the negative predictive value and correlation for erythrocyte protoporphyrin and atomic absorption method.

Results: Sensitivity, specificity, the positive predictive value and the negative predictive value for erythrocyte protoporphyrin method and atomic absorption method were 98%, 97%, 97%, 98% and 74%, 68%, 69% and 72% respectively.

Conclusion: The present study describes application of a simple, sensitive and economical detection method of lead poisoning. The data indicate that the erythrocyte protoporphyrin value obtained by this method could be used as a screening test for lead poisoning.