[Nicotine in the hair as a biomarker of tobacco smoke by pregnant women--preliminary study]. / Nikotyna we wlosach noworodków jako wskaznik palenia tytoniu przez kobiety w czasie ciazy--badania wstepne.

Determination of xenobiotics in hair has become common in evaluation of exposure to drugs. It can be used to assess the drug intake among adults and exposure to these substances in prenatal period. The aim of this study was the nicotine determination in hair of newborns' whose mothers were smoking during pregnancy. Also the relationship between concentration of cotinine--the main metabolite of nicotine in the urine of mothers and nicotine concentration in their infants' hair has been evaluated. The group of 15 women who had been smoking during pregnancy and 10 non-smoking and not exposed to ETS women and their newborns were the subject of the study. The cotinine levels in maternal urine samples was measured by the high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with a spectrometric detection, with the use of norephedryne as an internal standard, after a prior extraction with the use of liquid-liquid technique. Nicotine assess in infants' hair was carried out by means of gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry, with the use of ketamine as an interior standard, after the prior extraction with the use of liquid-liquid technique. The mean cotinine concentration in the group of smoking women amounted to 1132.5+/-1236.3 ng/mg creatinine and the level of nicotine in hair of children amounted to 1.9+/-3.2 ng/mg of hair. In the group of non-smoking women the urine cotinine test showed that two patients were exposed to the tobacco smoke. Nicotine in their children's hair was below the detection limit. The demonstrated correlation between the nicotine concentration in infants' hair and the cotinine levels in mothers' urine shows that the source of fetal exposure to tobacco smoke constituents is smoking during pregnancy. The applied gas chromatography method/mass spectrometry method allows to evaluate the level of nicotine in hair of the newborns, whose mothers were smoking during pregnancy, however it seems that in the case of exposure to ETS a more sensitive method, such as gas or liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry has to be applied.

[Cotinine in urine of mother and their newborn and in cord serum and placenta as a biomarker of foetal exposure to tobacco smoke]. / Kotynina w moczu matki i noworodka oraz w surowicy krwi pepowinowej i lozysku jako marker narazenia plodu na dym tytoniowy.

In Poland, tobacco smoking by women in a procreational age as well as the pregnant women is a common phenomenon. The aim of the conducted research was to assess the usefulness of cotinine markers in different biological materials--mother and newborn's urine, cord blood se. rum, placenta--as a biomarker of tobacco smoking by delivering women, and dependence between these biomarkers and the newborn's health state. 218 pregnant women (117 smokers and 101 non-smokers), who were checked in at the Perinatology and Gynecology Clinic of the University of Medical Sciences in Poznan, took part in the first stage of the research (period between the twelfth and sixteenth week of pregnancy) carried out between years 2004-2006. In the second stage, 201 pairs of women (89 smokers and 112 non-smokers) and their newborns were checked after the women came to hospital to deliver. The research that was conducted showed that both cotinine in the urine of delivering women and in the urine of newborns as well as in the cord blood serum may be used as a biomarker of exposure of a foetus to tobacco smoke. For practical reasons, it must be assumed that the delivering women urine should be the material from choice. The research did not indicate the usefulness of the determination of cotinine in the placenta, in order to assess the exposure of the foetus to the components of tobacco smoke. On the other hand, again it confirmed the influence of tobacco smoking on the newborn's birth parameters, a correlation between the birth weight, body length and cotinine concentration in the urine of a mother makes it possible to predict the lowering of the antropometric parameters of the newborn as a result of tobacco smoking by pregnant women.