Congener-specific analysis of non-dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls in blood collected from 127 elderly residents in Nakagawa Town, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan

Congener-specific analysis of non-dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls in blood collected from 127 elderly residents in Nakagawa Town, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan

Chemosphere 73 (2008) 865–872 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Chemosphere j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r. c o m /...

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Chemosphere 73 (2008) 865–872

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Chemosphere j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / ch e m o s p h e r e

Congener-specific analysis of non-dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls in blood collected from 127 elderly residents in Nakagawa Town, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan Takashi Todaka a,*, Tsuguhide Hori b, Hironori Hirakawa b, Jumboku Kajiwara b, Daisuke Yasutake b, Daisuke Onozuka b, Takao Iida b, Masutaka Furue a a b

Depart­ment of Der­ma­tol­ogy, Grad­u­ate School of Med­i­cal Sci­ences, Kyu­shu Uni­ver­sity, Mai­da­shi 3-1-1, Hig­ash­i-ku, Fu­kuoka 812-8582, Japan Fu­kuoka Insti­tute of Health and Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ences, Mu­kaiz­ano 39, Daz­aifu-shi, Fu­kuoka 818-0135, Japan

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 23 Feburary 2008 Received in revised form 19 July 2008 Accepted 21 July 2008 Available online 2 September 2008  Key­words: Poly­chlo­ri­nated biphe­nyls Elderly man Elderly woman Nak­ag­a­wa Town Con­ge­ner-spe­cific anal­y­sis Human blood

a b s t r a c t We con­ducted con­ge­ner-spe­cific anal­y­sis of non-dioxin-like poly­chlo­ri­nated biphe­nyls (non-dioxin-like PCBs) in blood col­lected in Feb­ru­ary 2004 from 127 elderly res­i­dents living in Nak­ag­a­wa Town, Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture, Japan. The pres­ent study is one of the few stud­ies in which 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­ en­ers were mea­sured in human blood. Of the 127 elderly res­i­dents, 51 were men (mean: 68.1 years) and 76 were women (mean: 68.1 years). Among 197 non-dioxin-like PCB cong­en­ers, 56 were iden­ti­fied in the blood of elderly res­i­dents. The arith­me­tic mean total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers in the blood of elderly men and women in Nak­ag­a­wa Town were 419 (median: 378) and 363 (median: 323) ng g¡1 lipid, respec­tively, and the con­cen­tra­tions were in the range of 172–1102 and 119–1226 ng g¡1 lipid, respec­tively, indi­cat­ing that the total con­cen­tra­tions in elderly men are sig­nif­ i­cantly higher than those in elderly women. The con­tam­i­na­tion of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of elderly men and women in Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture was found to have decreased com­pared to past lev­els. The ratios of hexa­chlo­ri­nat­ed biphe­nyls (hexa­CBs) to the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­ en­ers in the blood of elderly men and women were 44.6% and 45.6%, respec­tively, which was par­tic­u­larly high com­pared with those of other cong­en­ers. 2,29,4,49,5,59-Hex­aCB (#153) among hexa­CBs cong­en­ers, the most abun­dant con­ge­ner in the blood of elderly men and women, con­trib­uted approx­i­mately 23.0% and 23.5% to the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers, respec­tively. Fur­ther­more, 2,29,3,4,49,59-hex­aCB (#138), 2,3,39,49,5,6-hex­aCB (#163)/2,3,39,49,59,6-hex­aCB (#164), 2,29,3,4,49,5,59hep­taCB (#180), and 2,29,3,4,49,5,69-hep­taCB (#182)/2,29,3,49,5,59,6-hep­taCB (#187) also showed high ratios to the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers detected in the blood of elderly men and women. A sta­tis­ti­cal exam­i­na­tion of the rela­tion­ship between the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers in blood and the age of elderly res­i­dents who were over 60 years indi­ cated sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant cor­re­la­tions between the total con­cen­tra­tions of these PCBs cong­en­ers and the age of elderly women. How­ever, sim­i­lar cor­re­la­tions were not observed in elderly men. The results of the pres­ent study have indi­cated the cur­rent lev­els of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of elderly men and women in Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture, Japan and can be used as base­line data for those over age 60. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Intro­duc­tion Poly­chlo­ri­nated biphe­nyls (PCBs) are impor­tant mem­bers of the group of envi­ron­men­tal con­tam­i­nants know as per­sis­tent organic pol­lu­tants (POPs). PCBs form a fam­ily of 209 cong­en­ers dif­fer­ing in num­ber (mono, di, tri, tetra, penta, hexa, hepta, octa, nona, and deca) and position (2,29,3,3’,4,4’,5,59,6, and 69) of the chlo­rine atoms on the two basic ben­zene rings. When these PCBs are released into the envi­ron­ment, PCBs cong­en­ers are becom­ing con­cen­trated in * Cor­re­spond­ing author. Tel.: +81 92 921 9946; fax: +81 92 928 1203. E-mail address: to­daka@fi­hes.pref.fu­kuoka.jp (T. Todaka). 0045-6535/$ - see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2008.07.058

the biota through food chains and are accu­mu­lat­ing in the human body pri­mar­ily via food (Deu­tch et al., 2004; Do­na­to et al., 2006). Among 209 PCBs cong­en­ers, 12 PCBs that have the toxic equiv­a­ lency fac­tors (TEF) pro­posed as dioxin-like PCBs are assumed to pos­sess dioxin-like PCBs tox­ic­i­ties (Van den Berg et al., 1998, 2006). How­ever, the tox­ic­i­ties have been sug­gested not only with dioxinlike PCBs but also with non-dioxin-like PCBs, and can be viewed as non-dioxin-like PCBs tox­ic­i­ties that are not ­ med­i­ated by the a­ryl­hy­dro­car­bon recep­tor sys­tem (Ka­key­ama and To­hy­ama, 2003). Stud­ies in humans and other ver­te­brates have dem­on­strated that expo­sure to non-dioxin-like PCBs may elicit many adverse health effects such as dis­rup­tion of thy­roxin func­tion (Col­lins and Ca­pen,

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1980; Ness et al., 1993; Crof­ton et al., 2000), dis­tur­bance of neu­ ral trans­mis­sion (Se­egal et al., 1990; Til­son and Ko­dav­an­ti, 1998; Huss­ain et al., 2000), and impair­ment of learn­ing per­for­mance (Rice and Hay­ward, 1997, 1999; Ro­egge et al., 2000). There­fore, sur­ vey stud­ies of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood to elu­ci­date the influ­ence of these PCBs cong­en­ers on human health are nec­es­sary. Yu­sho poi­son­ing occurred in western Japan in 1968 (Ku­rats­une et al., 1996). Although almost all of the typ­i­cal symp­toms affect­ing Yu­sho patients have improved, some patients are still afflicted with subjective symp­toms. Since the out­break of Yu­sho, med­i­cal care ser­vices and health exam­i­na­tion of the sub­jects have been car­ried out by the study group of Yu­sho. To obtain more use­ful data for eval­u­at­ing the con­cen­tra­tions of poly­chlo­ri­nated dibenzo-p-di­ox­ ins (PCDDs), poly­chlo­ri­nated dib­enzofu­rans (PCDFs), non-ortho poly­chlo­ri­nated biphe­nyls (non-ortho PCBs), mono-ortho poly­chlo­ ri­nated biphe­nyls (mono-ortho PCBs), and non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of Yu­sho patients, it is nec­es­sary to mea­sure the con­ cen­tra­tions of there com­pounds in the blood of nor­mal con­trols unaf­fected by Yu­sho living in Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture whose ages were sim­i­lar to those of the Yu­sho patients and to com­pare the results between Yu­sho patients and nor­mal con­trols. We mea­sured the con­cen­tra­tions of PCDDs, PCDFs, and dioxin-like PCBs in blood col­ lected from 279, 269, 242, and 237 Yu­sho patients dur­ing med­i­cal check-ups per­formed the period from 2002 to 2005, respec­tively (To­daka et al., 2005a, 2007a). We also mea­sured the con­cen­tra­ tions of there dioxin-like com­pounds in the blood of 127 nor­mal con­trols living in Nak­ag­a­wa Town, Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture in 2004 (To­daka et al., 2007b). How­ever, the full con­ge­ner-spe­cific con­cen­ tra­tions of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the bloods of Yu­sho patients and nor­mal con­trols have not been mea­sured for the Yu­sho study until now. Data from con­ge­ner pro­files regard­ing non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood for the Yu­sho study may pro­vide us with newly impor­tant infor­ma­tion related to the expo­sure eval­u­a­tion of Yu­sho patients. More­over, although expo­sure stud­ies regard­ing nondioxin-like PCBs in human blood have been reported for the last sev­eral decades, the pub­lished data show­ing the full con­ge­ner-spe­ cific con­cen­tra­tions of non-dioxin-like PCBs are lim­ited. In the pres­ent study, we mea­sured the con­cen­tra­tions of nondioxin-like PCBs in blood sam­ples, from which PCDDs, PCDFs, and dioxin-like PCBs were mea­sured in a pre­vi­ous study, col­lected in Feb­ru­ary 2004 from 127 elderly res­i­dents living in Nak­ag­a­wa Town

of Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture, Japan. The objec­tives of our primary study were: (1) to deter­mine the cur­rent lev­els of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of elderly res­i­dents in Nak­ag­a­wa Town, Japan, and (2) to com­pare the con­cen­tra­tions in those sam­ples with recently reported lev­els. 2. Mate­ri­als and meth­ods 2.1. Sam­pling Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture is located in the south­west­ern part of the Jap­a­nese archi­pel­ago that extends from north to south. Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture con­sists of a total of 66 char­ac­ter­is­tic munic­i­pal­i­ties, includ­ing Nak­ag­a­wa Town, which is located in the south­west­ern part of Fu­kuoka City and has a pop­u­la­tion of 48 000 (Fig. 1). All the sub­jects par­tic­i­pat­ing in this study were native Jap­a­nese and were res­i­dents of Nak­ag­a­wa Town. The blood sam­ples were col­lected in Feb­ru­ary 2004 from 127 elderly res­i­dents, from whom informed con­sent was obtained. Among the 127 elderly res­i­dents, 51 were men and 76 were women. The ages of the elderly men and women ranged from 60 to 79 years (mean: 68.1, median: 68.0) and 60–6 years (mean: 68.1, median: 67.0), respec­tively. Blood sam­ples of 10 mL were col­lected using a vac­uum blood-col­lect­ing pipe con­tain­ ing hep­a­rin and stored at 4 °C until anal­y­sis for the con­cen­tra­tions of non-dioxin-like PCBs. 2.2. Mate­ri­als Native cong­en­ers of non-dioxin-like PCBs were pur­chased from Wel­ling­ton Lab­o­ra­to­ries (Guelph, Ontario, Can­ada). [13C12]cong­en­ers of non-dioxin-like PCBs as inter­nal stan­dards, were also pur­chased from Wel­ling­ton Lab­o­ra­to­ries. An active car­bon col­ umn was prepared as fol­lows: active car­bon was pur­chased from ­Nac­a­lai Tesque (Kyoto, Japan), refluxed three times with tol­u­ene for 1 h, and dried in vac­uum, after which 500 mg of the active car­ bon was mixed with 500 g of anhy­drous sodium sul­fate (Wako Pure Chem­i­cal Indus­tries, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan). A sil­ver nitrate/sil­ ica gel was pur­chased from Wako Pure Chem­i­cal Indus­tries, Ltd. An active ­ car­bon-dis­persed sil­i­ca­gel was pur­chased from Kan­to Chem­i­cal Indus­tries, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan. All reagents and sol­vents used in this exper­i­ment were of the ana­lytic grade of dioxin that

Nakagawa Town

Fig. 1. Map show­ing the loca­tion of Nak­ag­a­wa Town in Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture, Japan.



T. To­daka et al. / Chemosphere 73 (2008) 865–872

is ­ com­mer­cially avail­able. All glass­ware instru­ments used in this exper­i­ment were treated in a high-tem­per­a­ture oven (ALP Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) at 450 °C for 6 h. 2.3. Sam­ple prep­a­ra­tion The extrac­tion of lip­ids from the blood sam­ples was per­formed using a pre­vi­ously reported method (To­daka et al., 2003; Iida and To­daka, 2003; To­daka et al., 2005b; Hori et al., 2005). The extract was con­cen­trated to near dry­ness, and the lipid con­tents were deter­mined gravi­met­ri­cally. The extracted lipid was used to carry out the clean-up pro­ce­dure. The lipid were dis­solved in n-hex­ane (5 mL) and treated with con­cen­trated sul­fu­ric acid (3 mL). The sep­ a­rated hex­ane layer was applied to a col­umn that linked a sil­ver nitrate/sil­ica gel col­umn (0.5 g) and an active car­bon sodium sul­fate col­umn (0.5 g), and it was sep­a­rated into two frac­tions. The first frac­tion, con­tain­ing mono-ortho PCBs and non-dioxin-like PCBs, was eluted with 15 mL of hex­ane and 10 mL of 10% (v/v) dichlo­ro­ meth­ane/n-hex­ane. PCDDs, PCDFs, and non-ortho PCBs were eluted with 25 mL of tol­u­ene as the sec­ond frac­tion. The first frac­tion was con­cen­trated to near dry­ness with a multiple sam­ple con­cen­tra­tor (BU­CHI, La­bor­tech­nik AG, Fla­wil, Swit­zer­land) and fur­ther puri­fied using gel per­me­ation chro­ma­tog­ra­phy (GPC) on a MSpak GF-310 4D col­umn (4.6 £ 150 mm, Showa Den­ko K.K., Kanag­a­wa, Japan) equil­i­brated with ace­tone at a flow rate of 0.1 mL min¡1. The GPC appa­ra­tus con­sisted of a PU614-F Pump, a UV702 Detec­tor, a MIDAS Auto­sam­pler, and a FC 693 Frac­tion col­lec­tor from GL Sci­ences Inc., Tokyo, Japan. The elu­tion pro­file was mon­i­tored for absor­bance at 220 nm, and the peak was deter­mined on a SIC chro­mato­cord­er 12 (Sys­tem Instru­ment Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan). The frac­tions con­tain­ing mono-ortho PCBs and non-dioxin-like PCBs, which were puri­fied by GPC, were con­cen­trated to near dry­ness and the syringe stan­dard was added. 2.4. Anal­y­sis of non-dioxin-like PCBs Con­ge­ner-spe­cific anal­y­sis of non-dioxin-like PCBs was mea­ sured using a high res­o­lu­tion gas chro­ma­tog­ra­phy/high res­o­lu­tion mass spec­trom­e­try (HRGC/HRMS) (Hori et al., 2005). The ana­lytic con­di­tions were as fol­lows: the gas chro­mato­graph was an HP6890 A (Hew­lett–Pack­ard, USA, CA) equipped with an Auto­spec Ultima, (Mi­cro­mass Ltd., Man­ches­ter, UK); the col­umn used was a HT-8-PCB col­umn, 0.25 mm i.d. £ 60 m (SGE Ltd.); the col­umn was heated from 130 °C to 220 °C at a rate of 20 °C min¡1, 220–280 °C at a rate of 3 °C min¡1, 280–300 °C at a rate of 20 °C min¡1. The injec­tion tem­per­a­ture and ion source tem­per­a­ture were both main­tained at 280 °C, and the car­rier gas (helium) flow rate (con­stant flow) was 1.3 mL min¡1. The ion­iz­ing cur­rent, ion­iz­ing energy, accel­er­at­ing volt­age, and trap cur­rent were 750 lA, 40 eV, 8.0 kV, and 750 lA, respec­tively. PCBs were ana­lyzed in a sin­gle-ion record mode. The res­o­lu­tion was main­tained at 10 000 at 5%. 2.5. Qual­ity con­trol The limit of detec­tion (LOD) for each con­ge­ner of non-dioxinlike PCBs was deter­mined at a sig­nal-to-noise ratio of three on the chro­mato­gram of a stan­dard sam­ple. The limit of quan­ti­fi­ca­ tion for each con­ge­ner of non-dioxin-like PCBs was assessed at 0.03 pg g¡1. To eval­u­ate the accu­racy and reli­abil­ity in the con­ge­ ner-spe­cific anal­y­sis of PCBs, our lab­o­ra­tory in 2007 prepared human blood sam­ples for qual­ity con­trol and attempted to carry out a qual­ity con­trol study for the anal­y­sis of these PCBs cong­en­ ers in human blood. Mea­sure­ments of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers that were mea­sured in the pres­ent study among 197 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers requested from three dif­fer­ent anal­y­sis orga­ni­za­tions and their results were com­pared with our

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results. It was con­firmed that the results obtained by our lab­o­ra­ to­ries were almost iden­ti­cal to those obtained by the three dif­fer­ ent anal­y­sis orga­ni­za­tions. The aver­age var­i­a­tion among the total non-dioxin-like PCBs lev­els in human blood sam­ples obtained by four lab­o­ra­to­ries was within 10% and was con­sid­ered an accept­ able dif­fer­ence. In addi­tion, our lab­o­ra­tory’s ana­lyt­i­cal method for non-dioxin-like PCBs dem­on­strated high repro­duc­ibil­ity based on exper­i­ments con­ducted using the same con­trol blood sam­ple for ten weeks. These find­ings indi­cate that our lab­o­ra­tory’s ana­lyt­i­cal method for non-dioxin-like PCBs in human blood pro­vides cor­rect results. 2.6. Data anal­y­sis To esti­mate the total con­cen­tra­tion, we intro­duced ND (less than the detec­tion limit) val­ues to half val­ues of the detec­tion limit. The sta­tis­ti­cal anal­y­sis was con­ducted using Mann-Whit­ney’s U test and Spear­man’s rank cor­re­la­tion in the soft­ware pro­gram from SAS Insti­tute (SAS Inc.). Sig­nif­i­cant prob­a­bil­i­ties (p val­ues) were cal­cu­lated for the respec­tive num­ber of sam­ples ana­lyzed. A sig­nif­ i­cance level of 0.05 was used for all tests. 3. Results and dis­cus­sion 3.1. Con­cen­tra­tions of non-dioxin-like PCBs in blood 209 PCBs cong­en­ers con­sist of 12 dioxin-like PCBs and 197 ­­­­ non-dioxin-like PCBs. Among these 197 non-dioxin-like PCBs ­cong­en­ers, 56 were iden­ti­fied in the blood of elderly res­i­dents in the pres­ent study (Table 1). Hi­rai et al. has reported that 85 ­­nondioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers were detected in blood col­lected from 24 healthy Jap­a­nese vol­un­teers (12 men and 12 women; age range 25–6 years) (Hi­rai et al., 2005). The con­ge­ner pattern of non-dioxinlike PCBs in the pres­ent study is com­pa­ra­ble to that reported by Hi­rai et al. (2005). In the 85 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers reported by Hi­rai et al. (2005), the total con­cen­tra­tion of 55 cong­en­ ers (PCB 28, 44, 47/48, 49, 52/69, 56/60, 63, 66, 70, 71, 74, 85, 87, 92, 93/95/98, 99, 101, 107/108, 110, 117, 128, 130, 132, 134, 135, 137, 138, 139, 141, 146, 147, 151, 153, 163/164, 170, 172, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182/187, 183, 191, 194, 195, 196/203, 198/201, 200, 202, 205, 206, 207, 208, and 209) that were com­monly detected in the pres­ent study ­con­trib­uted approx­i­mately 96% of the total con­cen­tra­tions of 85 cong­en­ers. These 55 cong­en­ers may be con­sid­ered to be the pre­ dom­i­nant cong­en­ers of non-dioxin-like PCBs in humans. The arith­me­tic mean total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers in the blood of elderly men and women in ­Nak­ag­a­wa Town, Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture, Japan were 419 (median: 378) and 363 (median: 323) ng g¡1 lipid, respec­tively, and the con­cen­tra­tions were in the range of 172–102 and 119–1226 ng g¡1 lipid, respec­tively, indi­ cat­ing that the total con­cen­tra­tions in elderly men are sig­nif­i­cantly higher than those in elderly women (p = 0.031) (Table 1). These results are sim­i­lar to those recently reported in Japan (Ma­su­da et al., 2005). This dif­fer­ence between men and women may be attrib­ut­able to the partial excre­tion of non-dioxin-like PCBs accu­mu­lat­ing in the mater­nal body by deliv­ery and pos­si­bly sex dif­fer­ences regard­ing the enzyme that cat­a­lyzes the metab­o­lism of non-dioxin-like PCBs in humans. Indi­ca­tor PCBs (PCB 28, 52, 101, 138, 153, and 180) have been selected by the Euro­pean Food Safety Author­ity as the major cong­en­ ers that are almost always pres­ent in var­i­ous sam­ple matri­ces with high con­cen­tra­tions. The arith­me­tic mean total con­cen­tra­tions of indi­ ca­tor PCBs cong­en­ers in the blood of elderly men and women were 94–34 (mean: 214, median: 189) and 58–91 (mean: 184, median: 160) ng g¡1 lipid, respec­tively, indi­cat­ing that the total con­cen­tra­tions of indi­ca­tor PCBs in elderly men were sig­nif­i­cantly higher than those in elderly women (p = 0.028) (Table 1). These results are also sim­i­lar to those recently reported in Japan (Ma­su­da et al., 2005).

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Table 1 Con­cen­tra­tions of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of 127 elderly res­i­dents col­lected in Nak­ag­a­wa Town, Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture, Japan IU­PAC#

Elderly men (n = 51)

Elderly women (n = 76)

Mean

Median

SD

Min.

Max.

Mean

Median

SD

Min.

Max.

2.6 0.0

2.1 0.0

1.5 0.0

0.8 0.0

6.5 0.1

2.6 0.0

2.0 0.0

1.8 0.0

1.0 0.0

11 0.1

Te­traCB-44 Tet­ra­CBs-47/48 Te­traCB-49 Tet­ra­CBs-52/69a Tet­ra­CBs-56/60 Te­traCB-63 Te­traCB-66 Te­traCB-70 Te­traCB-71 Te­traCB-74

0.5 0.6 0.3 1.3 0.9 0.1 2.5 0.3 0.2 16

0.5 0.6 0.3 1.2 0.6 0.1 1.7 0.2 0.2 14

0.1 0.2 0.1 0.8 0.6 0.1 1.8 0.1 0.1 8.5

0.2 0.2 0.1 0.4 0.2 0.0 0.4 0.1 0.0 3.5

0.8 1.3 0.6 5.8 2.8 0.5 7.1 0.6 0.4 40

0.5 0.6 0.3 1.3 0.9 0.2 2.3 0.3 0.2 22

0.5 0.6 0.3 1.0 0.7 0.1 1.8 0.3 0.2 20

0.2 0.2 0.1 0.9 0.8 0.1 1.9 0.1 0.1 12

0.1 0.3 0.1 0.4 0.2 0.0 0.7 0.0 0.0 7.2

1.0 1.7 0.7 4.6 5.0 0.5 12 0.5 0.4 72

Pen­taCB-85 Pen­taCB-87 Pen­taCB-92 Pen­ta­CBs-93/95/98 Pen­taCB-99 Pen­taCB-101a Pen­ta­CBs-107/108 Pen­taCB-110 Pen­taCB-117

0.2 0.7 0.9 0.9 13 2.0 1.0 0.4 0.9

0.2 0.7 0.7 0.8 12 1.6 0.8 0.5 0.8

0.2 0.3 0.6 0.3 6.3 1.2 0.8 0.2 0.4

0.0 0.2 0.1 0.3 4.0 0.4 0.2 0.1 0.2

0.9 1.5 3.5 2.1 28 6.3 4.2 0.9 2.3

0.2 0.7 0.8 0.8 12 1.8 1.0 0.4 1.0

0.2 0.6 0.6 0.7 10 1.4 0.8 0.3 0.7

0.1 0.4 0.7 0.4 7.1 1.3 0.7 0.2 0.8

0.0 0.2 0.2 0.3 2.7 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.2

0.9 2.9 4.8 2.9 40 8.1 5.1 1.0 4.4

Hex­aCB-128 Hex­aCB-130 Hex­aCB-132 Hex­aCB-134 Hex­aCB-135 Hex­aCB-137 Hex­aCB-138a Hex­aCB-139 Hex­aCB-141 Hex­aCB-146 Hex­aCB-147 Hex­aCB-151 Hex­aCB-153a Hexa­CBs-163/164

0.9 2.8 0.3 0.0 0.5 3.1 43 0.9 0.4 15 0.5 1.4 97 21

0.8 2.7 0.3 0.0 0.5 2.9 40 0.8 0.3 13 0.5 1.1 85 19

0.5 1.3 0.1 0.0 0.2 1.2 19 0.4 0.2 6.6 0.3 0.8 40 9.3

0.2 0.6 0.1 0.0 0.1 1.3 17 0.2 0.0 5.7 0.1 0.2 42 7.4

2.3 7.8 0.9 0.1 1.1 5.6 85 2.0 1.1 37 1.3 3.5 202 52

0.8 2.5 0.3 0.0 0.5 2.9 39 0.8 0.3 13 0.5 1.2 85 18

0.7 2.1 0.2 0.0 0.4 2.5 35 0.6 0.2 11 0.4 0.8 74 17

0.5 1.7 0.2 0.0 0.3 1.5 20 0.5 0.2 6.7 0.3 1.0 41 9.9

0.1 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.8 11 0.1 0.1 4.0 0.0 0.2 24 0.0

3.0 11 1.3 0.2 2.3 10 130 3.4 1.2 47 1.9 5.8 270 60

Hep­taCB-170 Hep­taCB-172 Hep­taCB-177 Hep­taCB-178 Hep­taCB-179 Hep­taCB-180a Hep­taCB-181 Hep­ta­CBs-182/187 Hep­taCB-183 Hep­taCB-191

20 3.5 6.5 7.2 0.2 68 0.1 32 6.8 0.9

17 3.0 6.0 6.0 0.2 59 0.1 28 6.5 0.8

9.7 1.7 3.3 3.4 0.1 34 0.0 15 3.1 0.4

8.9 1.5 2.0 3.3 0.0 30 0.0 13 2.4 0.3

66 11 21 22 0.5 235 0.2 90 15 2.2

16 2.6 5.3 5.6 0.2 53 0.1 25 5.7 0.7

13 2.3 4.6 4.7 0.2 46 0.1 22 5.0 0.6

7.7 1.3 2.8 2.8 0.1 26 0.0 13 2.9 0.4

6.1 1.0 1.3 1.9 0.0 20 0.0 8.3 1.7 0.2

52 8.8 18 18 1.1 169 0.3 85 18 2.0

Oc­taCB-194 Oc­taCB-195 Oc­ta­CBs-196/203 Oc­ta­CBs-198/201 Oc­taCB-200 Oc­taCB-202 Oc­taCB-205

11 2.1 9.3 12 0.4 2.3 0.3

9.1 1.9 8.4 10 0.4 2.1 0.3

6.4 1.1 4.8 6.6 0.2 1.5 0.2

4.4 0.9 4.1 5.1 0.0 0.4 0.1

47 7.5 33 47 1.1 9.4 1.0

7.3 1.6 6.8 8.8 0.8 3.2 0.3

6.3 1.4 5.9 7.5 0.3 1.6 0.3

3.6 0.8 3.3 4.5 1.8 5.7 0.1

2.5 0.6 2.7 3.4 0.0 0.0 0.1

23 4.7 22 29 11 40 0.7

No­naCB-206 No­naCB-207 No­naCB-208

2.3 0.4 0.9

2.0 0.4 0.8

1.1 0.2 0.4

1.0 0.2 0.4

7.2 1.0 2.3

1.7 0.3 0.7

1.6 0.3 0.6

0.6 0.1 0.3

0.7 0.1 0.1

4.0 0.8 1.8

De­caCB-209

1.6

1.4

0.6

0.8

3.5

1.2

1.2

0.4

0.4

3.1

Total TriC­Bs Total Tet­ra­CBs Total Pen­ta­CBs Total Hexa­CBs Total Hep­ta­CBs Total Oc­ta­CBs Total Non­aC­Bs Total De­caCB Total indi­ca­tor PCBs Total PCBs

2.6 23 20 187 145 37 3.7 1.6 214 419

2.1 20 18.8 166 126 33 3.4 1.4 189 378

1.5 11 9.2 77 69 20 1.6 0.6 90 180

0.8 5.4 6.0 79 61 16 1.7 0.8 94 172

6.5 52 41 394 464 146 11 3.5 534 1102

2.6 28 19 165 115 29 2.7 1.2 184 363

2.0 25 16 145 98 23 2.5 1.2 160 323

1.8 15 11 81 56 17 1.0 0.4 88 175

1.0 10 5.5 48 41 11 0.9 0.4 58 119

11 98 65 544 372 128 6.6 3.1 591 1226

¡1

Con­cen­tra­tion (ng g TriCB-28a TriCB-29

a

 lipid)

Indi­ca­tor PCBs; CB: chlo­ri­nated biphe­nyls; SD: stan­dard devi­a­tion.



T. To­daka et al. / Chemosphere 73 (2008) 865–872

The rel­a­tive con­tri­bu­tion ratios of the con­cen­tra­tions of triC­Bs, tet­ra­CBs, pen­ta­CBs, hexa­CBs, hep­ta­CBs, oc­ta­CBs, non­aC­Bs, and de­caCB-209 to the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers for elderly men and women were 0.6%, 5.4%, 4.7%, 44.6%, 34.6%, 8.8%, 0.9%, and 0.4%, respec­tively, and 0.7%, 7.8%, 5.3%, 45.6%, 31.6%, 7.9%, 0.7%, and 0.3%, respec­tively, and the ratios were almost the same. There­fore, such char­ac­ter­is­tics may indi­cate the exis­tence of the same source of non-dioxin-like PCBs. The sums of the ratios of the con­cen­tra­tions of hexa­CBs and hep­ta­CBs to the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers in the blood of elderly men and elderly women were 79.2% and 77.2%, respec­tively. The hexa­CBs ratios in the blood of elderly men and women were 44.6% and 45.6%, respec­tively. 2,29,4,49,5,59-Hex­aCB (#153) among hexa­CBs cong­en­ers, the most abun­dant con­ge­ner in the blood of elderly men and women, con­trib­uted approx­i­mately 23.0% and 23.5% to the total con­cen­ tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers, respec­tively. Among non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers mea­sured in the pres­ent study, 2,29,3,4,49,59-hex­aCB (#138), 2,3,39,49,5,6-hex­aCB (#163)/ 2,3,39,49,59,6-hex­aCB (#164), 2,29,3,4,49,5,59-hep­taCB (#180), and 2,29,3,4,49,5,69-hep­taCB (#182)/2,29,3,49,5,59,6-hep­taCB (#187) also showed high ratios to the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 nondioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers detected in the blood of elderly men and women. The results obtained in the pres­ent study are sim­i­lar to those by which have been recently reported in Japan (Hi­rai et al., 2005; Ma­su­da et al., 2005). The total con­cen­tra­tions of these five cong­en­ers con­tain­ing 2,29,4,49,5,59-hex­aCB (#153) in elderly men and women con­trib­uted approx­i­mately 62.4% and 61.0% of the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers that were mea­sured in the pres­ent study, respec­tively. Other PCBs cong­ en­ers con­trib­uted less than 5% of the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers. Some pre­vi­ous stud­ies have attempted to eval­u­ate the lev­els of dioxin-like PCBs and non-dioxin-like PCBs in human blood. They ana­lyzed only com­monly detected PCBs cong­en­ers in human blood sam­ples. There­fore, the pub­lished data show­ing the con­cen­ tra­tions of full cong­en­ers of non-dioxin-like PCBs in human blood are lim­ited. The results obtained by the pres­ent study indi­cate the cur­rent lev­els of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of elderly men and women in Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture, Japan and can be used as base­ line data for those over age 60. To bet­ter under­stand the lev­els of total non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of elderly men and women in Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture, Japan, we com­pared the pres­ent data with those from 152 res­i­dents (men 75 and women 77; age range 20–60 years) who lived in Fu­kuoka City in 1999 that had pre­vi­ously been reported in Fu­kuoka ­Pre­fec­ture, Japan (Ma­su­da et al., 2005). Among 33 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­ en­ers that were mea­sured in the blood of men and women, as pre­ vi­ously reported, 26 of these cong­en­ers (PCB 28, 52/69, 56/60, 66, 74, 99, 101, 130, 137, 138, 146, 153, 163/164, 170, 172, 177, 178, 180, 182/187, 183, 194, 195, 196/203, 198/201, 202, and 206) were com­ monly detected in the pres­ent study. The total con­cen­tra­tions of the 26 cong­en­ers mea­sured in the pres­ent study con­trib­uted approx­i­ mately 96% of the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers in both elderly men and women. These 26 cong­en­ers may there­fore be con­sid­ered to be the most abun­dant cong­en­ers for con­ ge­ner-spe­cific risk assess­ment of non-dioxin-like PCBs in humans. Among the 127 elderly res­i­dents in the pres­ent study, 51 were men (mean: 68.1 years, median: 68.0 years) and 76 were women (mean: 68.1 years, median: 67.0 years). Of the 51 elderly men, 30 were under 69 years old (mean: 64.5 years, median: 64.5 years) and 21 were over 70 years old (mean: 73.2 years, median: 73.0 years). In the case of the 76 elderly women, 46 were under 69 years old (mean: 64.1 years, median: 64.0 years) and 30 were over 70 years old (mean: 74.1 years, median: 73.5 years). The arith­me­tic mean total con­cen­ tra­tions of 26 PCBs cong­en­ers in the blood of elderly men (mean:

869

64.5 years) and women (mean: 64.1 years) in the under 69 years group of Nak­ag­a­wa Town in the pres­ent study were lower than those reported from the results in Fu­kuoka City. The sums of 26 con­ge­ner con­cen­tra­tions of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of 33 elderly men (mean: 50.5 years, median: 50.1 years) and 23 elderly women (mean: 49.3 years, median: 49.0 years) in the over 40 years group for Fu­kuoka City were 623.7 and 404.6 ng g¡1 lipid, respec­ tively, which were 1.6 and 1.3 times higher than the same sums for elderly men and women of Nak­ag­a­wa Town, respec­tively. Sim­i­lar results were observed regard­ing the lev­els of indi­ca­tor PCBs. In a pre­vi­ous study, we mea­sured the con­cen­tra­tions of PCDDs, PCDFs, and dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of 127 elderly res­i­dents in a pres­ ent study. The arith­me­tic mean total TEQ con­cen­tra­tions of PCDDs, PCDFs, and dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of elderly men (mean: 64.5 years) and women (mean: 64.1 years) in the under 69 years group from Nak­ag­a­wa Town were 18.7–95.2 (mean: 43.0, median: 37.5) and 18.2–97.5 (mean: 44.7, median: 40.1) pg TEQ g¡1 lipid, respec­ tively. The con­cen­tra­tions of these dioxin-like com­pounds in the blood of 33 elderly men (mean: 50.5 years) and 24 elderly women (mean: 49.3 years) in the over 40 years group from Fu­kuoka City were 10.0–88.7 (mean: 39.0, median: 32.6) and 14.4–102.0 (mean: 42.4, median: 37.5) pg TEQ g¡1 lipid, respec­tively, which were 0.91 and 0.95 times higher than those of Nak­ag­a­wa Town, respec­tively. How­ever, the elderly men and women from Nak­ag­a­wa Town were on aver­age 15 years older than those from Fu­kuoka City. When both con­cen­tra­tions were com­pared in con­sid­er­ation of the age, it seems likely that envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion lev­els and human expo­sure to PCDDs, PCDFs, and dioxin-like PCBs in Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture have not increased. In the case of the non-dioxin-like PCBs, the lev­els obtained in the pres­ent study show a decrease com­pared to past lev­ els in Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture reported in 1999. Cor­re­spond­ing results were observed regard­ing the lev­els of indi­ca­tor PCBs. These find­ ings sug­gest that more efforts to reduce human expo­sure to PCDDs, PCDFs, dioxin-like PCBs, and non-dioxin like PCBs in Fu­kuoka Pre­ fec­ture should be con­tin­ued in future. 3.2. Effects of age on the lev­els of non-dioxin-like PCBs The total PCBs con­cen­tra­tions in blood sam­ples from the under 69 years group and the over 70 years group for elderly men were 198–756 (mean: 410, median: 358) and 172–1102 (mean: 432, median: 379) ng g¡1 lipid, respec­tively (Table 2). In the case of elderly women, the con­cen­tra­tions were 119–761 (mean: 328, median: 294) and 200–1226 (mean: 416, median: 345) ng g¡1 lipid, respec­tively (Table 3). An exam­i­na­tion of the results in regard to the rela­tion­ship between the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxinlike PCBs cong­en­ers detected in the blood and the age of elderly men and women con­firmed that the lev­els of those in the over 70 years group were sig­nif­i­cantly higher than those in the under 69 years group. When the effects of age on the lev­els of non-dioxinlike PCBs in blood were com­pared in age-matched groups, the rela­ tion­ship between the total con­cen­tra­tions of these PCBs cong­en­ers in blood and the age of elderly men and women showed that the lev­els of these PCBs cong­en­ers tend to increase with increases in age in both groups. The con­cen­tra­tion ratios of the over 70 years group to the under 69 years group in elderly women are greater than those in elderly men. A sta­tis­ti­cal exam­i­na­tion of the rela­tion­ship between the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers detected in blood and the age of elderly res­i­dents who were over 60 years indi­ cated sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant cor­re­la­tions between the total con­ cen­tra­tions of these PCBs cong­en­ers and the age of elderly women (q = 0.299, p = 0.009). How­ever, cor­re­spond­ing cor­re­la­tions were not observed in elderly men (q = ¡0.009, p < 0.951). More­over, sta­ tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant cor­re­la­tions were observed between the total lev­els of indi­ca­tor PCBs in blood and the age of elderly women

870

T. To­daka et al. / Chemosphere 73 (2008) 865–872

Table 2 Con­cen­tra­tions of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of 51 elderly men col­lected in Nak­ag­a­wa Town, Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture, Japan IU­PAC#

Under-69-years old (n = 30)

Over-70-years old (n = 21)

Mean

Median

SD

Min.

Max.

Mean

Median

SD

Min.

Max.

2.4 0.0

2.0 0.0

1.3 0.0

1.0 0.0

6.5 0.1

2.9 0.0

2.1 0.0

1.7 0.0

0.8 0.0

6.0 0.1

Te­traCB-44 Tet­ra­CBs-47/48 Te­traCB-49 Tet­ra­CBs-52/69a Tet­ra­CBs-56/60 Te­traCB-63 Te­traCB-66 Te­traCB-70 Te­traCB-71 Te­traCB-74

0.5 0.7 0.3 1.3 0.7 0.1 2.1 0.3 0.2 15

0.5 0.6 0.3 1.3 0.6 0.1 1.6 0.2 0.2 13

0.1 0.2 0.1 0.4 0.5 0.1 1.5 0.1 0.1 8.1

0.2 0.3 0.2 0.7 0.3 0.0 0.7 0.1 0.0 5.0

0.8 1.3 0.5 2.2 2.3 0.4 6.7 0.6 0.3 40

0.4 0.6 0.3 1.4 1.0 0.1 3.0 0.3 0.2 17

0.4 0.6 0.3 1.1 0.8 0.1 2.2 0.2 0.2 16

0.2 0.2 0.1 1.1 0.7 0.1 2.0 0.1 0.1 9.0

0.2 0.2 0.1 0.4 0.2 0.0 0.4 0.1 0.0 3.5

0.8 1.0 0.6 5.8 2.8 0.5 7.1 0.4 0.4 35

Pen­taCB-85 Pen­taCB-87 Pen­taCB-92 Pen­ta­CBs-93/95/98 Pen­taCB-99 Pen­taCB-101a Pen­ta­CBs-107/108 Pen­taCB-110 Pen­taCB-117

0.2 0.7 0.8 0.9 13 1.9 0.9 0.5 0.8

0.2 0.7 0.7 0.8 12 1.6 0.7 0.5 0.8

0.1 0.3 0.4 0.3 6.5 0.8 0.7 0.2 0.4

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.6 4.0 0.9 0.3 0.2 0.3

0.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 28 3.7 3.1 0.9 1.7

0.3 0.7 0.9 0.8 12 2.1 1.2 0.4 0.9

0.2 0.6 0.7 0.7 12 1.6 1.0 0.4 0.8

0.2 0.3 0.8 0.4 6.1 1.5 0.9 0.2 0.5

0.0 0.2 0.1 0.3 4.4 0.4 0.2 0.1 0.2

0.9 1.3 3.5 2.1 26 6.3 4.2 0.8 2.3

Hex­aCB-128 Hex­aCB-130 Hex­aCB-132 Hex­aCB-134 Hex­aCB-135 Hex­aCB-137 Hex­aCB-138a Hex­aCB-139 Hex­aCB-141 Hex­aCB-146 Hex­aCB-147 Hex­aCB-151 Hex­aCB-153a Hexa­CBs-163/164

0.9 2.7 0.3 0.0 0.5 3.1 43 0.9 0.3 15 0.5 1.4 96 21

0.8 2.9 0.3 0.0 0.5 2.9 42 0.8 0.3 14 0.4 1.2 85 20

0.4 1.1 0.1 0.0 0.2 1.2 19 0.4 0.2 5.7 0.3 0.7 36 8.8

0.3 1.1 0.1 0.0 0.2 1.4 18 0.3 0.1 5.7 0.2 0.5 42 7.4

1.9 5.3 0.6 0.1 1.1 5.6 78 2.0 0.8 29 1.2 2.8 173 46

1.0 2.8 0.3 0.0 0.5 3.1 43 0.8 0.4 15 0.5 1.3 97 21

0.9 2.4 0.3 0.0 0.4 2.9 38 0.6 0.3 13 0.5 1.1 85 19

0.6 1.7 0.2 0.0 0.3 1.3 20 0.5 0.3 7.7 0.3 0.9 45 10

0.2 0.6 0.1 0.0 0.1 1.3 17 0.2 0.0 5.7 0.1 0.2 45 8.1

2.3 7.8 0.9 0.1 1.1 5.6 85 1.8 1.1 37 1.3 3.5 202 52

Hep­taCB-170 Hep­taCB-172 Hep­taCB-177 Hep­taCB-178 Hep­taCB-179 Hep­taCB-180a Hep­taCB-181 Hep­ta­CBs-182/187 Hep­taCB-183 Hep­taCB-191

19 3.3 6.3 7.0 0.2 65 0.1 32 6.8 0.8

18 3.2 6.1 6.2 0.2 60 0.1 29 6.8 0.8

6.6 1.2 2.5 2.5 0.1 23 0.0 12 3.0 0.4

9.5 1.5 2.9 3.3 0.1 31 0.0 14 2.4 0.3

36 6.6 13 13 0.4 132 0.1 60 13 2.2

21 3.6 6.7 7.6 0.2 72 0.1 33 6.8 0.9

16 2.9 5.4 5.7 0.2 55 0.1 28 6.3 0.8

13 2.2 4.2 4.4 0.1 45 0.1 18 3.3 0.4

8.9 1.5 2.0 3.3 0.0 30 0.0 13 2.4 0.5

66 11 21 22 0.5 235 0.2 90 15 2.0

Oc­taCB-194 Oc­taCB-195 Oc­ta­CBs-196/203 Oc­ta­CBs-198/201 Oc­taCB-200 Oc­taCB-202 Oc­taCB-205

9.7 2.1 8.9 11 0.4 2.0 0.3

9.2 1.9 8.6 11 0.4 2.0 0.3

3.2 0.8 3.3 3.8 0.2 0.9 0.1

4.8 0.9 4.6 5.5 0.0 0.4 0.1

18 3.9 17 21 0.7 3.8 0.7

12 2.3 10 13 0.4 2.7 0.3

8.8 1.9 8.1 9.0 0.3 2.1 0.3

9.2 1.5 6.3 9.3 0.3 2.1 0.2

4.4 1.0 4.1 5.1 0.1 0.9 0.2

47 7.5 33 47 1.1 9.4 1.0

No­naCB-206 No­naCB-207 No­naCB-208

2.2 0.4 0.9

2.1 0.4 0.9

0.8 0.2 0.4

1.0 0.2 0.4

4.5 0.8 1.9

2.4 0.4 1.0

1.9 0.4 0.8

1.4 0.2 0.5

1.3 0.2 0.5

7.2 1.0 2.3

De­caCB-209

1.6

1.4

0.5

0.8

2.6

1.6

1.3

0.7

0.8

3.5

Total TriC­Bs Total Tet­ra­CBs Total Pen­ta­CBs Total Hexa­CBs Total Hep­ta­CBs Total Oc­ta­CBs Total Non­aC­Bs Total De­caCB Total indi­ca­tor PCBs Total PCBs

2.4 21 20 186 140 35 3.6 1.6 210 410

2.0 19 19 164 126 33 3.4 1.4 187 358

1.3 9.9 8.6 71 50 12 1.3 0.5 77 149

1.0 8.8 7.4 84 66 18 1.7 0.8 98 198

6.5 52 40 338 275 63 7.0 2.6 388 756

3.0 25 20 188 152 40 3.8 1.6 219 432

2.2 21 19 166 123 30 3.1 1.3 192 379

1.7 12 10 87 90 29 2.0 0.7 109 220

0.8 5.4 6.0 79 61 16 2.0 0.8 94 172

6.1 47 41 394 464 146 10.5 3.5 534 1102

¡1

Con­cen­tra­tion (ng g TriCB-28a TriCB-29

a

 lipid)

Indi­ca­tor PCBs; CB: chlo­ri­nated bi­phen­y­ls; SD: stan­dard devi­a­tion.



T. To­daka et al. / Chemosphere 73 (2008) 865–872

871

Table 3 Con­cen­tra­tions of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of 76 elderly women col­lected in Nak­ag­a­wa Town, Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture, Japan IU­PAC#

Under-69-years old (n = 46)

Over-70-years old (n = 30)

Mean

Median

SD

Min.

Max.

Mean

Median

SD

Min.

Max.

2.5 0.0

2.0 0.0

1.3 0.0

1.1 0.0

7.8 0.1

2.7 0.0

2.0 0.0

2.3 0.0

1.0 0.0

11 0.1

Te­traCB-44 Tet­ra­CBs-47/48 Te­traCB-49 Tet­ra­CBs-52/69a Tet­ra­CBs-56/60 Te­traCB-63 Te­traCB-66 Te­traCB-70 Te­traCB-71 Te­traCB-74

0.4 0.6 0.3 1.1 0.8 0.1 2.1 0.3 0.2 19

0.4 0.5 0.2 0.8 0.7 0.1 1.9 0.3 0.2 18

0.2 0.2 0.1 0.7 0.5 0.1 1.2 0.1 0.1 7.8

0.2 0.3 0.1 0.4 0.2 0.0 0.7 0.0 0.0 7.2

0.8 1.1 0.6 3.4 2.6 0.4 6.6 0.4 0.4 41

0.5 0.6 0.3 1.5 1.0 0.2 2.5 0.3 0.2 27

0.5 0.6 0.3 1.2 0.7 0.1 1.6 0.3 0.2 24

0.2 0.3 0.2 1.0 1.0 0.1 2.5 0.1 0.1 14

0.1 0.3 0.1 0.5 0.3 0.0 0.9 0.1 0.1 9.2

1.0 1.7 0.7 4.6 5.0 0.5 12 0.5 0.3 72

Pen­taCB-85 Pen­taCB-87 Pen­taCB-92 Pen­ta­CBs-93/95/98 Pen­taCB-99 Pen­taCB-101a Pen­ta­CBs-107/108 Pen­taCB-110 Pen­taCB-117

0.2 0.6 0.7 0.7 11 1.6 0.9 0.4 0.8

0.2 0.5 0.6 0.6 9.8 1.4 0.8 0.3 0.6

0.1 0.3 0.4 0.3 4.9 0.9 0.5 0.2 0.6

0.0 0.2 0.2 0.3 2.7 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.2

0.6 1.5 2.0 1.7 24 4.7 2.7 0.8 3.5

0.2 0.8 1.1 0.9 15 2.2 1.1 0.4 1.2

0.2 0.7 0.7 0.8 12 1.5 0.8 0.4 0.9

0.2 0.6 1.0 0.6 9.4 1.6 1.0 0.2 1.0

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.3 4.8 0.7 0.3 0.2 0.3

0.9 2.9 4.8 2.9 40 8.1 5.1 1.0 4.4

Hex­aCB-128 Hex­aCB-130 Hex­aCB-132 Hex­aCB-134 Hex­aCB-135 Hex­aCB-137 Hex­aCB-138a Hex­aCB-139 Hex­aCB-141 Hex­aCB-146 Hex­aCB-147 Hex­aCB-151 Hex­aCB-153a Hexa­CBs-163/164

0.8 2.2 0.2 0.0 0.4 2.6 36 0.7 0.3 12 0.4 1.0 78 16

0.7 1.8 0.2 0.0 0.4 2.3 31 0.7 0.3 10 0.4 0.8 73 17

0.4 1.3 0.1 0.0 0.2 1.2 15 0.4 0.2 5.0 0.2 0.7 33 8.3

0.1 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.8 11 0.1 0.1 4.0 0.0 0.2 24 0.0

1.9 7.1 0.6 0.1 1.1 6.6 75 1.9 1.0 29 1.3 3.9 184 46

1.0 3.1 0.3 0.0 0.5 3.3 45 0.9 0.3 15 0.6 1.4 96 20

0.7 2.6 0.2 0.0 0.4 2.7 38 0.6 0.2 13 0.4 0.8 77 17

0.6 2.0 0.2 0.0 0.4 1.9 25 0.7 0.2 8.4 0.4 1.4 50 12

0.4 1.2 0.1 0.0 0.2 1.3 17 0.3 0.1 6.8 0.1 0.3 48 0.0

3.0 11 1.3 0.2 2.3 10 130 3.4 1.2 47 1.9 5.8 270 60

Hep­taCB-170 Hep­taCB-172 Hep­taCB-177 Hep­taCB-178 Hep­taCB-179 Hep­taCB-180a Hep­taCB-181 Hep­ta­CBs-182/187 Hep­taCB-183 Hep­taCB-191

14 2.4 4.6 5.0 0.2 48 0.1 23 5.2 0.7

13 2.2 4.2 4.4 0.2 42 0.1 20 4.6 0.6

6.1 1.0 2.2 2.1 0.1 20 0.0 9.8 2.3 0.3

6.1 1.0 1.3 1.9 0.0 20 0.0 8.3 1.7 0.2

37 6.3 13 12 0.5 117 0.1 55 11 1.9

18 3.0 6.2 6.5 0.2 61 0.1 29 6.5 0.8

16 2.8 5.6 5.6 0.2 55 0.1 23 5.3 0.6

9.5 1.6 3.4 3.4 0.2 32 0.1 16 3.7 0.4

6.4 1.0 2.4 2.5 0.0 22 0.0 12 2.3 0.3

52 8.8 18 18 1.1 169 0.3 85 18 2.0

Oc­taCB-194 Oc­taCB-195 Oc­ta­CBs-196/203 Oc­ta­CBs-198/201 Oc­taCB-200 Oc­taCB-202 Oc­taCB-205

6.6 1.5 6.2 7.9 0.7 3.0 0.3

6.0 1.3 5.2 6.7 0.3 1.3 0.2

2.7 0.6 2.5 3.4 1.6 4.6 0.1

3.2 0.8 2.7 3.4 0.0 0.0 0.1

16 3.8 14 18 11 20 0.6

8.3 1.8 7.7 10 1.1 3.4 0.3

7.8 1.5 6.5 9.1 0.3 1.9 0.3

4.5 0.9 4.2 5.7 2.0 7.0 0.1

2.5 0.6 3.0 3.7 0.0 0.0 0.1

23 4.7 22 29 8.6 40 0.7

No­naCB-206 No­naCB-207 No­naCB-208

1.6 0.3 0.6

1.6 0.3 0.6

0.5 0.1 0.2

0.7 0.1 0.3

3.4 0.6 1.4

1.9 0.3 0.7

1.8 0.3 0.6

0.8 0.2 0.4

0.7 0.1 0.1

4.0 0.8 1.8

De­caCB-209

1.1

1.1

0.3

0.4

2.1

1.3

1.2

0.5

0.7

3.1

Total TriC­Bs Total Tet­ra­CBs Total Pen­ta­CBs Total Hexa­CBs Total Hep­ta­CBs Total Oc­ta­CBs Total Non­aC­Bs Total De­caCB Total indi­ca­tor PCBs Total PCBs

2.5 25 17 151 103 26 2.5 1.1 167 328

2.1 23 15 136 91 20 2.4 1.1 153 294

1.3 10 7.3 63 43 12 0.9 0.3 68 132

1.1 10 5.5 48 41 11 1.1 0.4 58 119

7.8 52 37 354 254 55 5.3 2.1 386 761

2.7 34 22 188 132 33 2.9 1.3 209 416

2.0 30 18 153 113 32 2.7 1.2 173 345

2.3 19 14 99 69 22 1.3 0.5 107 217

1.0 13 8.3 92 51 12 0.9 0.7 102 200

11 98 65 544 372 128 6.6 3.1 591 1226

¡1

Con­cen­tra­tion (ng g TriCB-28a TriCB-29

a

 lipid)

Indi­ca­tor PCBs; CB: chlo­ri­nated bi­phen­y­ls; SD: stan­dard devi­a­tion.

872

T. To­daka et al. / Chemosphere 73 (2008) 865–872

(q = 0.273, p = 0.017) and sim­i­lar cor­re­la­tions were not observed in elderly men (q = ¡0.019, p < 0.895). We mea­sured the con­cen­tra­tions of PCDDs, PCDFs, and dioxinlike PCBs in blood col­lected from 279, 269, 242, and 237 Yu­sho patients dur­ing med­i­cal check-ups per­formed the period from 2002 to 2005, respec­tively, and in sam­ples from 92, 74, 74, and 114 Yu­sho-sus­pected per­sons dur­ing those same years, respec­tively (To­daka et al., 2005a, 2007a). Based on the results of the fol­lowup sur­vey study, the con­cen­tra­tion of 2,3,4,7,8-pen­ta­chlo­ri­nat­ed diben­zo­fu­ran, the heat-degraded by-prod­ucts of PCBs, in the blood offi­cially became part of the diag­nos­tic cri­te­ria for Yu­sho expo­sure on Sep­tem­ber 29, 2005 (To­daka et al., 2007b). How­ever, the full con­ ge­ner-spe­cific con­cen­tra­tions of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of patients have not been ana­lyzed in a sur­vey study for Yu­sho. In the pres­ent study, we con­ducted con­ge­ner-spe­cific anal­y­sis of nondioxin-like PCBs in the blood of 127 elderly res­i­dents unaf­fected by Yu­sho living in Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture whose ages were sim­i­lar to those of the Yu­sho patients. Future study regard­ing the con­ge­ner pro­files of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of Yu­sho patients may pro­vide newly impor­tant infor­ma­tion regard­ing expo­sure eval­u­a­ tion of Yu­sho patients. We are cur­rently con­duct­ing con­ge­ner-spe­ cific anal­y­sis of non-dioxin-like PCBs in blood col­lected in 2004 from 242 Yu­sho patients and 74 Yu­sho-sus­pected per­sons. 4. Con­clu­sions In this study, we per­formed con­ge­ner-spe­cific anal­y­sis of non-dioxin-like PCBs in blood col­lected from 127 elderly res­i­ dents in Nak­ag­a­wa Town of Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture, Japan. The pres­ ent study was one of the few stud­ies where 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers were mea­sured in human blood. The con­ge­ner pattern of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the pres­ent study was sim­i­lar to that recently reported in Japan. Among non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers mea­sured in the pres­ent study, 2,29,4,49,5,59-hex­ aCB (#153), 2,29,3,4,49,59-hex­aCB (#138), 2,3,39,49,5,6-hex­aCB (#163)/2,3,39,49,59,6-hex­aCB (#164), 2,29,3,4,49,5,59-hep­taCB (#180), and 2,29,3,4,49,5,69-hep­taCB (#182)/2,29,3,49,5,59,6-hep­ taCB (#187) showed high ratios to the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­en­ers detected in the blood of elderly men and women. The total con­cen­tra­tions of these five cong­en­ers in elderly men and women con­trib­uted approx­i­mately 62.4% and 61.1% of the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­ en­ers, respec­tively. A sta­tis­ti­cal exam­i­na­tion of the rela­tion­ship between the total con­cen­tra­tions of 56 non-dioxin-like PCBs cong­ en­ers detected in the blood and the age of elderly res­i­dents who were over 60 years indi­cated sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant cor­re­la­tions between the total con­cen­tra­tions of these PCBs cong­en­ers and the age of elderly women. How­ever, sim­i­lar cor­re­la­tions were not observed in elderly men. The con­tam­i­na­tion of non-dioxin-like PCBs mea­sured in 127 elderly res­i­dents has decreased com­pared to past lev­els in Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture which were sur­veyed in 1999. The results of the pres­ent study indi­cate the cur­rent lev­els of non-dioxin-like PCBs in the blood of elderly men and women in Fu­kuoka Pre­fec­ture, Japan and can be used as base­line data for those over 60. Fur­ther­more, the data obtained by the pres­ent study are nec­es­sary for a com­par­i­son with the blood lev­els of the PCBs cong­en­ers under con­sid­er­ation between Yu­sho patients and nor­mal con­trols for a Yu­sho study. Acknowl­edg­ment This work was sup­ported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for sci­en­tific research from the Min­is­try of Health Labour and Welfare, Japan.

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