Hair
Biomonitoring is a valid tool to perform exposure assessment as it integrates all sources and routes; however, very often conventional matrices such as blood and urine only allow the investigation of recent exposures; to overcome this limitation and assess cumulative exposure, the use of head hair has been proposed as a matrix for biological monitoring. The use of hair began in the 1960s to assess exposure to heavy metals; over the years, improved analytical methods, both in terms of sensitivity and specificity, have allowed the detection of organic substances. Currently, hair analysis is applied to the routine measurements of drugs of abuse in forensic sciences, and has other research applications in clinical medicine, occupational and environmental toxicology.
Recently our group developed a sensitive method to measure terbuthylazine and its metabolites in human urine and hair; the method is based on isotope dilution LC-MS/MS (Mercadante, 2012a; Mercadante, 2012b). The assay was applied to three groups of subjects: agriculture workers applying TBA to maize crops, rural residents residing close to the crops, and the general population living far away from the treated area (Mercadante, 2013). Current research is focused on a new assay for the analysis of a wide panel of pesticides in hair; the assay will be used to characterize the exposure scenarios in different groups of subjects.
Furthermore time trace elements are currently measured via mass spectrometry inductively coupled to a plasma source to assess cumulative exposure to metals in the general population (Bollati et al., 2014).
