Determination of Arsenic in Human Scalp Hair and Fingernails of Healthy Individuals Resident in Karbala, Iraq by Using ICP-OES

The use of unconventional biological materials as biomarkers in trace element studies has increased in terms of published research studies. In this study, human scalp hair and fingernails were used to be a possible biomarker for arsenic in the human body as no study has been published in Karbala yet. Samples were obtained from 56 healthy individuals resident in Karbala, Iraq. The level of arsenic was determined by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The validity, precision and accuracy of the methodology were evaluated using a “pooled” sample for each media and certified reference materials. The validation methods provided acceptable levels of precision and accuracy with lower range of RSD (1.1%) and acceptable range of elemental recoveries (98.09 %), respectively. The results show that the arsenic levels of study sample are in general agreement with the literature ranges for scalp hair with exception reported for fingernails. It was found that there was no significantdifference for arsenic between the two tissues (at P 0.05). In addition, the value of correlation coefficient (r = 0.804, P = 0.05) was indicated that there is a significant positive correlations for arsenic level between scalp hair and fingernails.