Abstract
Nicotine and cotinine in hair are good biomarkers for assessing long-term exposure to smoking. However, analytical devices such as GC/MS are associated with high cost and are not widely used. HPLC/UV is used widely in laboratories, but is unsuitable for measurement of minor constituents, except when using the column-switching method. Thus, we aimed to establish a simple, inexpensive and sensitive method based on HPLC/UV with column switching for measuring nicotine and cotinine in hair. First, we compared the presence and absence of a column selection unit. We then measured amounts of nicotine and cotinine in hair samples collected from the general population, and compared both the corresponding levels and the detection limits with those in previous studies. Finally, initial and running costs of HPLC/UV were compared with other analytical methods. As one of the results, the areas of nicotine and cotinine measured by HPLC/UV with column-switching method were 12.9 and 16.9 times greater, respectively, than those without the column-switching method. The amount of nicotine and cotinine in hair was significantly correlated to number of cigarettes smoked per day (r = 0.228, p = 0.040). In addition, the HPLC/UV method showed similar sensitivity and detection limit (nicotine, 0.10 ng/mg; cotinine, 0.08 ng/mg) as reported in previous studies. The cost of the HPLC/UV method is lower than that of other analytical methods. We were able to establish a low-cost method with good sensitivity for measuring nicotine and cotinine in hair. The HPLC/UV with a column-switching method will be useful as a first step in screening surveys in order to better understand the effects of smoking exposure.
Highlights
The risks of smoking are widely recognized and taking action against smoking continues to be a priority issue for public health
This study aims to establish a simple, cheap and sensitive method based on HPLC/UV with column-switching in order to measuring nicotine and cotinine in hair
Initial and running costs were compared for each analytical apparatus and we evaluated the usefulness of HPLC/UV
Summary
The risks of smoking are widely recognized and taking action against smoking continues to be a priority issue for public health. Biological monitoring is important as a means to evaluate exposure to smoking. Levels nicotine and its metabolite, cotinine, were measured in the urine or saliva of smokers [3,4,5]. The levels of nicotine or cotinine in these samples may reflect acute exposure to smoking, but not the amount of habitual smoking. Because human hair grows about 1 cm/month, it is useful in biological monitoring in the medium or long term [6,7]. The amount of nicotine and its metabolites in the hair reportedly decreases slowly; a decrease of less than 10% was observed after being left to stand for one week at room temperature [6]
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