title: Assessment of exposure to PCB 153 from breast feeding and normal food intake in individual children using a system approach model.
abstract: Investigators have typically relied on a single or few discrete time points as measures of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) body burden, however health effects are more likely to be the result of integrative exposure in time, optionally expressed as an area under the time curve (AUC) of PCB serum concentration. Using data from a subgroup of 93 infants from a birth cohort in eastern Slovakia-a region highly polluted by PCBs-we fit a system type model, customized to our longitudinal measures of serum PCB concentrations in cord, 6, 16, and 45 month blood specimens. The most abundant congener, PCB 153, was chosen for modeling purposes. In addition to currently used methods of exposure assessment, our approach estimates a concentration time profile for each subject, taking into account mean residence time of PCB 153 molecules in the body, duration of breast feeding, hypothetical PCB 153 concentration in steady-state without breast feeding and alternately without normal food intake. Hypothetical PCB 153 concentration in steady-state without normal food intake correlates with AUC (r=0.84, p<0.001) as well as with duration of breast feeding (r=0.64, p<0.001). It makes possible to determine each subject's exposure profile expressed as AUC of PCBs serum concentration with a minimum model parameters. PCB body burden in most infants was strongly associated with duration of breast feeding in most, but not all children, was apparent from model output.
authors: Slovak Medical University, Limbová 12, 83303 Bratislava, Slovakia. tomas.trnovec@szu.sk
authors: Tomáš
authors: T
authors: Trnovec
authors: Ladislav
authors: L
authors: Dedík
authors: Todd A
authors: TA
authors: Jusko
authors: Kinga
authors: K
authors: Lancz
authors: Lubica
authors: L
authors: Palkovičová
authors: Anton
authors: A
authors: Kočan
authors: Eva
authors: E
authors: Šovčíková
authors: Soňa
authors: S
authors: Wimmerová
authors: Juraj
authors: J
authors: Tihányi
authors: Henrieta
authors: H
authors: Patayová
authors: Irva
authors: I
authors: Hertz-Picciotto
mesh_terms: D019540:Area Under Curve; D001942:Breast Feeding; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004435:Eating; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls / Q000097:blood*
chemical_list: D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls