Environmental and occupational exposure to various metals has been a major public health concern and the subject of many studies. With the development of industry and transportation, environmental pollution has markedly worsened. As a result, metals are now ubiquitous and are absorbed into the body with food, drinking water, and polluted air. Exposure to these elements leads to numerous health problems, affecting almost every system of the human body, including the skeletal system. Bone is a specific research material that is difficult to obtain, therefore chemical analyses of metal concentrations in this tissue are rarely found in the literature. Nevertheless, bone, due to its long regeneration period, can serve as a biomarker of a long-term metal accumulation resulting from environmental or occupational exposure. Our study was conducted on bone samples harvested from inhabitants of the Upper Silesia region during hip replacement surgery. Femoral heads removed during surgery were sectioned into slices and further subdivided into samples comprising articular cartilage, cortical bone, and trabecular bone. Concentrations of 12 trace elements were measured with an atomic absorption spectrophotometry method. We found significant correlation between concentrations of these metal elements in the samples of cortical bone. This is determined not only by the physiological functions of these metals in hydroxyapatite, but also by the specific mineral structure of the bone tissue.

Osteoarthritis causes the degradation of the articular cartilage and periarticular bones. Trace elements influence the growth, development and condition of the bone tissue. Changes to the mineral composition of the bone tissue can cause degenerative changes and fractures. The aim of the research was to determine the content of cadmium (Cd), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) in the tibia, the femur and the meniscus in men and women who underwent a knee replacement surgery. Samples were collected from 50 patients, including 36 women and 14 men. The determination of trace elements content were performed by ICP-AES method, using Varian 710-ES. Average concentration in the tissues of the knee joint teeth amounted for cadmium 0.015, nickel 0.60, copper 0.89 and zinc 80.81 mg/kg wet weight. There were statistically significant differences in the content of cadmium, copper and zinc in different parts of the knee joint. There were no statistically significant differences in the content of cadmium, nickel, copper and zinc in women and men in the examined parts of the knee joint. Among the elements tested, copper and nickel showed a high content in the connective tissue (the meniscus) compared to the bone tissue (the tibia and the femur).

Concentration of lead in bone, unlike in soft tissues, increases during the lifetime and reflects severity of exposure to this element. The main aim of the study was to determine concentrations of lead and calcium and to find possible relationship between calcium and lead in the tissues of the hip joints obtained from inhabitants of the Upper Silesian Industrial Area. We also attempted to identify factors that might affect this relationship. The samples were harvested intraoperatively during total hip replacement procedures; in most cases, the indication for the surgery was hip osteoarthritis. Concentrations of lead and calcium were measured with a Pye Unicam SP-9 acetylene-oxygen flame atomic absorption spectrometer. The highest mean concentration of lead was found in the cancellous bone from the femoral head, followed by articular cartilage, cortical bone and the intertrochanteric cancellous bone (0.75 μg/g). The smallest concentration was found in the joint capsule (0.19 μg/g). The highest mean concentration of calcium was found in cancellous bone from the femoral head, followed by cancellous bone from the intertrochanteric area, cortical bone, articular cartilage and joint capsule. The concentration of lead showed no correlation with sex. The bone concentration of calcium decreased with age. In the analysed hips, this finding was true in the cortical bone, as well as in the cancellous bone of the intertrochanteric area. Statistically significant correlation between calcium and lead was found only in the hip articular cartilage.

Cadmium is an element with proven direct and indirect toxic effects on bones. Zinc affects the content of cadmium in the human body. These elements show antagonistic interactions. The aim of the research was to determine the levels of cadmium and zinc in the hip joint tissues and interactions between these elements. The study group consisted of 91 subjects, 66 women and 25 men. The tissues were obtained intraoperatively during hip endoprosthetic surgery. The levels of cadmium and zinc were assayed by the atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) method. The analysis of the content of cadmium and zinc in different parts of the hip joint, i.e., articular cartilage, cortical bone, and cancellous bone of the femoral head as well as the articular capsule and a fragment of the cancellous bone taken from the intertrochanteric region of the femoral bone showed significant differences. The cancellous bone was found to have the highest potential to accumulate the elements studied, whereas part of the articular capsule the lowest. Higher levels of cadmium and zinc were observed in samples obtained from men. Patients with bone fractures had higher cadmium content than those with osteoarthritis. The study on the content of cadmium and zinc in the tissues of the hip joint is one of the primary research biomonitoring.

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