Polychlorinated dibenzofUrans human adipose tissue

Nakamura, H., Matsuda, M., Quynh, H.T., Cau, H.D., Chi, H.T.K., Wakimoto, T., 1994. Levels of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, dibenzofurans, PCBs, DDTs and HCHs in human adipose tissue and breast milk from the south of Vietnam. Organohalo. Compd. 21, 71-76. 

Gorski T, Konopka L, Brodzki M. 1984. Persistence of some polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans of pentachlorophenol in human adipose tissue. Rocz Panstw Zakl Hig 35 297-301. 

Ono M, Wakimoto T, Tatsukawa R, et al. 1986. Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans in human adipose tissues of Japan. Chemosphere 15 1629-1634. 

Patterson DG Jr, Turner WE, Isaacs SG, et al. 1990. A method performance evaluation and lessons learned after analyzing more than 5,000 human adipose tissue, serum, and breast milk samples for polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and dibenzofurans (PCDFs). Chemosphere 20 829-863. 

Schecter A, Ryan JJ. 1988. Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin and dibenzofuran levels in human adipose tissues from workers 32 years after occupational exposure to 2,3,7,8-TCDD. Chemosphere 17 915-920. 

Polychlorinated dioxins and dibenzofurans have been identified in technical products and pesticides, most of which are not very widely used today. Other sources are incinerators of various types like MSW incinera-" tors, but also hazardous waste incinerators and industrial incinerators. PCDDs and PCDFs have also been identified in exhausts from cars running on leaded gasoline with halogenated additives. Background levels of PCDDs and PCDFs have been identified in fish and other aquatic organisms from the Great Lakes and the Baltic Sea, and also in human adipose tissue samples from USA, Canada, Sweden, Japan and Vietnam as well as in samples of breast milk from Sweden,... 

Carrier, G., R.C. Brunet, and J. Brodeur. 1995. Modeling of the toxicokinetics of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans in mammalians, including humans. I. Nonlinear distribution of PCDD/PCDF body burden between liver and adipose tissues. Toxicol. Appl. Pharmacol. 131(2) 253-266. 

Patterson Jr. DG, Todd GD, Turner WE, et al. 1994. Levels of non-ortho-substituted (coplanar), mono-and di-ortho-substituted polychlorinated biphenyls, dibenzo-p-dioxins, and dibenzofurans in human serum and adipose tissue. Environ Health Perspect 102(supp 1) 195-204. 

Human poisonings from consumption of PCB mixtures include the well-known Yusho rice oil poisoning in Japan (1968), where PCB fluids became mixed inadvertently with rice oil used for cooking. The actual level of contamination of the rice oil was low, about 0.2%. About 2000 people were poisoned in 1978 in a similar incident in Yu-Cheng, Taiwan. The principal symptoms in both cases were related to headache. Adipose tissue from Yusho patients was found to contain up to 75 ppm of PCBs. Cancer development was not statistically connected with people poisoning by PCBs. Later investigations have shown that the toxicity of these PCB-contaminated rice oils was probably not primarily due to the PCBs themselves, but to the traces of polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), which they contained. We will consider the formation of furans and dioxins in the following section. 

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