PIXE ANALYSIS OF TRACE ELEMENTS IN HUMAN HAIR OF PATIENTS WITH LIVER DISORDERS

Abstract

Human hairs of cirrhosis, acute viral hepatitis patients and healthy people in Ulaanbaatar, capital city of Mongolia, were analyzed for the presence of heavy elements by PIXE spectrometry using 2.5 MeV proton beam at the Tokyo Institute of Technology Van de Graaff Laboratory. The samples were dissolved in a mixture of nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide. Then a 20μl aliquot was dropped on a Nuclepore Track-etch Membrane. The IAEA Reference Hair IAEA-086 certified reference material was used in order to verify accuracy of the method and the results were in good agreement with the certified values. To determine the interaction among nine elements in hair, correlation coefficients were evaluated for several pairs of elements. In the group of healthy control, no correlation between elements was identified. Opposite to this, the strong positive correlations were observed for Zn and Ca or Fe ; Mn and Ca or Ti ; Sr and Zn or Fe in the patients hair. In the present study, the mean concentrations of Ca , Ti , As and Sr in Mongolian patients were higher than those in the hair of normal people in Japan, Mongolia, Iran and Indonesia. The levels of Cu , Zn and Mn concentration in hair of normal people were almost the same for all the cohorts.