Background
It is generally acknowledged that the determination of harmful chemical compounds excreted into saliva is useful for assessing their exposure levels. The
Conclusions
These findings indicated saliva may be used as a useful tool for biological monitoring of total arsenic exposure in the crowd rather than an efficient tool for assessing arsenic metabolism in human body after exposed to arsenic.
Methods
Total arsenic and speciation analyses in urine and saliva samples among 70 residents exposed to arsenic from drinking water in Shanxi, China were carried out by high-performance liquid chromatography-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (HPLC-ICP/MS).
Results
The result showed that, total arsenic concentration in saliva was relatively lower than in urine samples, but it existed a strong positive correlation with total urinary arsenic, drinking water arsenic and different skin lesions. For arsenic metabolism analyses, AsIII, AsV, MMA, and DMA were detected in all of the urine samples with the dominating species of DMA (73.2%). Different with urinary arsenic species, most arsenic species in saliva were not methylated. The major species in saliva was iAs (AsIII + AsV, 76.18%), followed by DMA (13.08%) and MMA (9.13%). And the primary methylation index (PMI), second methylation index (SMI) and proportion of the four different species (AsIII, AsV, MMA, and DMA) in saliva showed no significant positive relationship with that of in urine. Conclusions: These findings indicated saliva may be used as a useful tool for biological monitoring of total arsenic exposure in the crowd rather than an efficient tool for assessing arsenic metabolism in human body after exposed to arsenic.