Biomonitoring of bisphenol A in hair of Greek population

Objective: Bisphenol A (BPA) is considered as an endocrine-disruptor in which humans are exposed daily mainly by food-contact products, toys, recycled paper and drinking containers. In this study, we validated a method for the isolation and the detection of BPA in human head hair samples and estimated the burden of BPA in hair of Greek population. Methods: Hair samples were collected from 69 volunteers. The isolation of the BPA was performed by solid-liquid extraction with methanol and its determination by a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry technique. Results: The limits of quantification (LOQ= 9.7 pg mg(-1)), the accuracy (92.6%), the precision (inter 15.3%, intra 13.0%), the ion suppression (<8.1%) and the recovery (88.3%) of the method were found satisfactory. Differences in the detection rates of the positive samples as well in detected levels of BPA between rural and urban population were observed. The 41.2% of the samples collected from urban population were positive whereas the positive samples from rural population were 14.8% (p = 0.025). The mean concentration of the positive samples for the urban population was 64.1 pg mg(-1) (17.7-192.8 pg mg(-1)), for the rural population 40.3 pg mg(-1) (13.1-72.8 pg mg(-1)) and for the children 37.9 pg mg(-1) (13.1-72.8 pg mg(-1)). Significant statistical differences (p = 0.021) were observed though between urban and rural population only when negative samples were replaced with LOD/2 values. Conclusion: The proposed method was successfully applied for the determination of BPA in hair for the estimation of the population burden to BPA. (c) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.