Evaluation of 11 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon metabolites in urine of Czech mothers and newborns.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) represent a large group of ubiquitous contaminants of the environment, including food chain where they are released as by-products of incomplete combustion of an organic matter. Epidemiological studies have shown that exposure to PAHs correlated with increased incidence of cancer. Carcinogenicity is associated mainly with metabolites that are formed during metabolic degradation of these substances in exposed organism. In this study monohydroxylated PAHs (OH-PAHs), the major metabolites excreted into urine, were determined in 531 urine samples collected from mothers and their newborns from two localities of the Czech Republic – heavily air polluted Karvina and control locality of Ceske Budejovice and in two sampling rounds – August–October 2013 (summer, less air polluted season) and January–April 2014 (winter, more air polluted season). From all targeted analytes, naphthalene-2-ol was the most abundant compound present in 100% of the samples and it represented also the analyte with the highest concentration. Median concentration of ΣOH-PAHs in the urine of children was on average 1.6 times lower compared to the respective mother which correlates with higher intake of PAHs by mothers. ΣOH-PAHs concentrations determined in mothers' urine collected in the summer were comparable in both localities. No significant increase occurred in Ceske Budejovice in winter, while in samples from the Karvina region a statistically significant difference (α = 0.05) in the amount of ΣOH-PAHs was observed. The median concentrations of ΣOH-PAHs in mothers' urine samples in the winter were 1.5 times higher than in the summer in the same locality. The amounts of ΣOH-PAHs in newborns' urine from Karvina in the winter season were 1.5 times higher than in the summer collected in the same locality and 3.3 times higher when compared with the less polluted locality of Ceske Budejovice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]