Quantitative analysis of organochlorine pesticides in human serum using headspace solid-phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

Abstract

Persistent organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) are well known to accumulate in environment and to instigate disruptions in endocrine system. In the present study, 18 kinds of OCPs were bio-monitored from 1904 adult serums. Analysis was performed with headspace gas chromatography (HS-GC) which has the advantage to require small volume of serum (1mL) without complex pretreatment and 13C isotope labeled internal standard mix was used for quantitation. As a result, eleven out of 18 OCPs, including hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane metabolites (DDTs) were detected. HCB was the most frequently detected OCP (8.0%) with an average concentration of 1.74ngg−1 lipid (2.10ngg−1 lipid–99.80ngg−1 lipid). p,p′-Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (p,p′-DDE) had the highest average concentration of 21.65ngg−1 lipid (12.80ngg−1 lipid–2270ngg−1 lipid) and was detected from 7.5% of serum samples. The average concentration of ∑DDT metabolites was 32.04ngg−1 lipid (6.61ngg−1 lipid–2800ngg−1 lipid) with detection frequency of 9.0%. Results interpreted with respect to age groups showed increase in ∑OCPs and ∑DDTs concentrations as age increases, except for the 20. Results interpreted with respect to gender, in general, illustrated higher detected concentration of OCPs in male serums than in female serums; however, the result trend was reversed in age group of the sixties. The above results will be applicable to health impact assessment of Koreans in relation to environmental contaminations.