title: Using nicotine in scalp hair to assess maternal passive exposure to tobacco smoke.
abstract: Quantifying population exposure level to tobacco smoke is important for investigating its adverse effects on human health. We aimed to investigate the feasibility and application of using population hair concentrations of nicotine and cotinine to indicate their exposure level to tobacco smoke among pregnant women. Our study recruited 256 mothers who delivered healthy babies and collected their hair samples from scalp, of which 172 mothers were self-reported non-passive smokers and the other 84 mothers were self-reported passive smokers. We analyzed nicotine and cotinine concentrations of the hair section grown during the early pregnancy. The linear relationship between cotinine and nicotine was developed and validated by internal cross-validation method. Our results revealed that self-reported passive smokers had higher concentrations of nicotine [2.08 (1.00-4.46) ng/mg hair, i.e. median value (inter-quartile range)] and cotinine [0.063 (0.041-0.148) ng/mg hair] than non-passive smokers [1.35 (0.58-2.59) ng/mg hair of nicotine and 0.049 (0.022-0.087) ng/mg hair of cotinine, respectively]. There existed a linear regression model between hair cotinine and nicotine concentrations, i.e. [cotinine] = 0.024 × [nicotine]+0.0184 (R2= 0.756) for this population. The internal cross-validation squared correlation coefficient slightly increased from 0.689 to 0.734 with the training subjects varying from 20% to 90%, suggesting that this regression model had high robustness and predictive accuracy. It was concluded that nicotine in maternal hair can evaluate the hair cotinine level and reflect maternal passive exposure level to ambient tobacco smoke with high sensitivity.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Reproductive and Child Health, Peking University/ Key Laboratory of Reproductive Health, National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China, Beijing 100191, PR China; Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing 100191, PR China.
authors.forename: Zhenjiang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Institute of Reproductive and Child Health, Peking University/ Key Laboratory of Reproductive Health, National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China, Beijing 100191, PR China; Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing 100191, PR China.
authors.forename: Zhiwen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Child, Adolescent and Women's Health, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing 100191, PR China.
authors.forename: Jingxu
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Reproductive and Child Health, Peking University/ Key Laboratory of Reproductive Health, National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China, Beijing 100191, PR China; Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing 100191, PR China.
authors.forename: Wenhua
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Huo
authors.affiliation: Institute of Reproductive and Child Health, Peking University/ Key Laboratory of Reproductive Health, National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China, Beijing 100191, PR China; Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing 100191, PR China.
authors.forename: Yibing
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Reproductive and Child Health, Peking University/ Key Laboratory of Reproductive Health, National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China, Beijing 100191, PR China; Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing 100191, PR China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Reproductive Medical Center, Peking University, People's Hospital, Beijing 100044, PR China.
authors.forename: Qun
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Reproductive and Child Health, Peking University/ Key Laboratory of Reproductive Health, National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China, Beijing 100191, PR China; Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing 100191, PR China. Electronic address: binwangpku@foxmail.com.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003367:Cotinine / Q000032:analysis; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006197:Hair / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D018811:Maternal Exposure / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009035:Mothers; D009538:Nicotine / Q000032:analysis*; D011247:Pregnancy; D012535:Scalp; D057566:Self Report; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution / Q000032:analysis* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014026:Nicotiana
chemical_list: D014028:Tobacco Smoke Pollution; D009538:Nicotine; D003367:Cotinine
keywords: Cotinine; Hair; Nicotine; Passive tobacco smoking; Pregnant women