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Andrew C. Todd,¹ Erin L. Moshier,¹ Spencer Carroll,¹ and Stanley W. Casteel²

¹Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, The Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA; ²Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri, USA

Abstract

The aim of this study was to apply the technique of ¹⁰⁹Cd-based K-shell X-ray fluorescence (XRF) bone lead measurements to swine femurs and to validate the concentrations obtained therefrom against an independent chemical measurement of bone lead: atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) . The femurs ranged in lead concentration from 1.0 to 24.5 µg of lead per gram of ashed bone, as measured by AAS. On average, XRF overestimated AAS-measured femur lead by 2.6 µg/g [95% confidence interval (CI) , 1.1-4.0 µg/g], approximately 2 µg/g poorer than that observed in studies of human tibiae. Measurements of swine femur and, by extension, of nonhuman bones may require adjustment of the XRF spectrum peak extraction method. Key words: atomic absorption, lead poisoning, spectrometry, spectrophotometry, X-ray fluorescence. Environ Health Perspect 109:1115-1119 (2001) . [Online 19 October 2001]

http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2001/109p1115-1119todd/ abstract.html

Address correspondence to A.C. Todd, Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, The Mount Sinai Medical Center, Box 1057, One Gustave L. Levy Place, New York, NY 10029-6574 USA. Telephone: (212) 241-1668. Fax: (212) 423-9313. E-mail: andrew.todd@mssm.edu

R. Buchanan provided technical assistance, which is gratefully acknowledged.

This study was supported by grants ES05697, ES06616, and ES07198 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health of the U.S. Public Health Service. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIEHS or NIH.

Received 24 January 2001 ; accepted 11 April 2001.