Assessment of the LeadCare® Plus for Use on Scandinavian Brown Bears (Ursus arctos).

Amanda H. Boesen,Jon M. Arnemo,Alina L. Evans,Boris Fuchs,Alexandra Thiel,Mads F. Bertelsen,Ilia Rodushkin

doi:10.3389/fvets.2019.00285

Abstract

Lead (Pb) exposure is associated with adverse health effects in both humans and wildlife. Blood lead levels (BLL) of sentinel wildlife species can be used to monitor environmental lead exposure and ecosystem health. BLL analyzers, such as the LeadCare®, are validated for use in humans, assessed for use in some avian species and cattle, and are increasingly being used on wildlife to monitor lead exposure. The LeadCare® analyzers use a technique called anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV). Species-specific conversion equations have been proposed to approximate the levels found with gold standard measuring methods such as inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) because the ASV method has been shown to underestimate BLL in some species. In this study we assessed the LeadCare® Plus (LCP) for use on Scandinavian brown bears (Ursus arctos). LCP measurements were correlated with ICP-MS with a Bland-Altman analyzed bias of 16.3–22.5%, showing a consistent overestimation of BLL analyzed with LCP. Based on this analysis we provide conversion equations for calculating ICP-MS BLL based on the LCP results in Scandinavian brown bears. Our study shows that the LeadCare® Plus can be used for monitoring of lead exposure by approximating gold standard levels using conversion equations. This enables comparison with other gold standard measured BLL within the observed range of this study (38.20–174.00 μg/L). Our study also found that Scandinavian brown bears are highly exposed to environmental lead.

Highlights

Environmental contamination with and subsequent exposure to lead (Pb) impacts both humans and animals living in a polluted ecosystem
The LeadCare® Plus (LCP) was significantly correlated to the inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) blood lead level (BLL) both for overall as well as fresh and frozen samples separately (Table 1, Figure 1) and conversion equations were based on the models 1, 2 and 3
The results indicate that Scandinavian brown bears are exposed to elevated BLL

Summary

Introduction

Environmental contamination with and subsequent exposure to lead (Pb) impacts both humans and animals living in a polluted ecosystem. In humans lead has been associated with a wide range of harmful health effects, including reduced IQ [1] and cardiovascular disease [2, 3]. The harmful effects of lead exposure in humans are well-documented, these results have yet to be applied in legislation and regulation on all areas of lead usage, e.g., lead-based ammunition for hunting. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has set the blood lead level (BLL) of concern for. The level of concern of the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), termed the “reference level” under the current US administration, is 50 μg/L [7, 8]

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