title: Environmental arsenic epidemiology in the Mekong river basin of Cambodia.
abstract: We investigated relationship of arsenicosis symptoms with total blood arsenic (BAs) and serum albumin (SAlb) of residents in the Mekong River basin of Cambodia. We found that arsenicosis patients had significantly higher BAs and lower SAlb than asymptomatic villagers (Mann-Whitney U test, p<0.01). Arsenicosis symptoms were found to be 76.4% (1.764 times) more likely to develop among individuals having an SAlb≤44.3gL(-1) than among those who had an SAlb>44.3gL(-1) (OR=1.764, 95% CI=0.999-3.114) and 117.6% (2.176 times) as likely to occur among those with BAs>5.73µgL(-1) than for those having BAs≤5.73µgL(-1) (OR=2.176, 95% CI=1.223-3.872). Furthermore, a significant negative correlation was also found between BAs and SAlb (rs (199)=-0.354, p<0.0001). As such, this study suggests that people with low SAlb and/or high BAs are likely to rapidly develop arsenicosis symptoms.
authors.affiliation: United Nations University-International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH), UKM Medical Centre, 56000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Research and Development Unit, Cambodian Chemical Society, Street 598, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Electronic address: kongkeaphan@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Kongkea
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Phan
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju 500-712, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Kyoung-Woong
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: United Nations University-International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH), UKM Medical Centre, 56000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Department of Community Health, National University of Malaysia, UKM Medical Centre, 56000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Jamal Hisham
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Hashim
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D020261:Arsenic Poisoning / Q000097:blood* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002160:Cambodia / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D060587:Groundwater / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012709:Serum Albumin / Q000032:analysis*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis* / Q000097:blood / Q000652:urine
chemical_list: D012709:Serum Albumin; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
keywords: Arsenicosis; Blood arsenic; Cambodia; Serum albumin; Urinary arsenic