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A non-invasive biomonitoring method for assessing levels of urinary pyrethroid metabolites in diapered children by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 24, pages 200–207 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop a method for quantitative measurement of urinary metabolites of pyrethroid (PYR) insecticides, trans-chrysanthemumdicarboxylic acid (CDCA) and 3-phenoxybenzoic acid (3-PBA), extracted from disposable diapers. This study was approved by the university ethics committees, and informed consent was obtained from all the parents for their children and from adult volunteers. After extraction of PYR metabolites in the absorber of diapers with 5 ml acetone, the metabolites in the eluents were extracted with tert-butyl methyl ether, derivatized with 1,1,1,3,3,3-hexafluoroisopropanol and analyzed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. The limits of quantitation (LOQs) were 0.55 μg/l for CDCA and 0.09 μg/l for 3-PBA in 2 ml urine extracted from diapers. Within-series and between-day precisions were <14% (CV%) over the concentration range of metabolites from 0.4 to 20.4 μg/l urine. When concentrations of each metabolite were measured with the developed method after pouring 2 ml urine, which was obtained from adults both in a general population and pest control operators, on diapers, good correlations were shown between the measured results and the concentrations measured directly for the respective urine with the conventional method (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient 0.889 for CDCA and 0.989 for 3-PBA; n=27–28). The developed method would be applicable to epidemiological studies.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr. Kenji Takagi and Ms. Naoko Hirosawa for their helpful advice in the course of this study. This work was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (236890234, 20310035 and 21659153) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

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Author notes

  1. Shun Saito and Jun Ueyama: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathophysiological Laboratory Sciences, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan

    Shun Saito, Jun Ueyama, Takaaki Kondo, Hiroshi Nomura & Shinya Wakusawa

  2. Aichi Science and Technology Foundation, Aichi, Japan

    Isao Saito

  3. Department of Health and Psychosocial Medicine, Aichi Medical University School of Medicine, Aichi, Japan

    Eiji Shibata

  4. Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan

    Masahiro Gotoh

  5. Department of Development and Environmental Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan

    Kunihiko Nakai

  6. Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Nagoya, Japan

    Michihiro Kamijima

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  1. Shun Saito
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  2. Jun Ueyama
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Correspondence to Jun Ueyama or Michihiro Kamijima.

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Saito, S., Ueyama, J., Kondo, T. et al. A non-invasive biomonitoring method for assessing levels of urinary pyrethroid metabolites in diapered children by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 24, 200–207 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2013.31

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2013.31

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