Meconium analysis as a promising diagnostic tool for monitoring fetal exposure to toxic substances: Recent trends and perspectives

Prenatal exposure to toxic substances is an important public health problem. Many biological specimens obtained from the fetus or mother are used for biomonitoring. Each material reflects exposure in a specific time period and has different advantages and disadvantages in terms of accuracy, time window of detection and cost/benefit ratio. Recently, meconium has become the matrix of choice in toxicology screening for detecting exposure to xenobiotics. Alcohol metabolites and illicit drugs, pharmaceuticals, nicotine, heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants and their metabolites have been detected in meconium samples. Meconium testing is non-invasive, highly accurate and able to detect prior exposure in utero from 12 to 13 weeks of gestation. This paper reviews current studies focused on meconium analysis for the assessment of fetus exposure to xenobiotics. Analytical procedures for the determination of these compounds and their metabolites and the possibilities and limitations of their use in clinical toxicology are also presented and discussed. (c) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.