Biological monitoring of iodine, a water disinfectant for long-term space missions.

Abstract

In order to establish guidelines for exposure of astronauts to iodine, used as a water disinfectant in space, we studied the usefulness of hair, saliva, and urine for biological monitoring in humans and in the human hair/nude mouse model. The monitoring of iodine in patients that received 150 mCi of Na131I (carrier-free) showed similar patterns of elimination for blood, saliva, and urine. The mean correlation coefficient (r) between iodine elimination for blood/saliva was 0.99, for blood/urine, 0.95, and for saliva/urine, 0.97. The absolute value of iodine concentrations in urine revealed marked variability, which was corrected by adjusting for creatinine levels. The autoradiographic studies of human hair demonstrated that iodine is rapidly incorporated into external layers of the hair root and can be removed easily during washing. These data were confirmed after iodine exposure using the human hair/nude mouse model. Hair does not provide satisfactory information about exposure due to unstable incorporation of iodine. The most useful medium for biological monitoring of astronauts exposed to high doses of iodine in drinking water is urine, when adjusted for creatinine, and saliva, if quantitative evaluation of flow rate is provided.ImagesFigure 1.Figure 2.Figure 3.Figure 4.

Determination of Iodine in Low Mass Human Hair Samples by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

“…Prior to testing, samples were transferred to vials and were cleaned with acetone to remove external contamination using a procedure described in detail elsewhere (Pellizzari et al 1999). Although some authors have reported that hair may be susceptible to iodine loss from washing, all samples were treated in the same manner, so results are reflective of iodine excretion (Zareba et al 1995;Adams et al 2006).…”

Speciation Analysis of Non-Metallic Elements Using Plasma-Based Atomic Spectrometry for Detection

“…The iodine species present in water depend on the nature of the water sample analyzed; primarily inorganic iodine species exist in seawater and treated waters. On the other hand organoiodine species can be present in natural waters such as river waters [64,66,68,70,71,[73][74][75][76]. Groundwater, which is mainly compossed by rainwater and small amount of water trapped during the emplacement or sedimentation of rocks, comprises about 0.6% of the total global water.…”