A STUDY OF CONCENTRATION OF NICOTINE AND ITS METABOLITES IN THE URINE BY TOBACCO SMOKE EXPOSURE

摘要

To evaluate the health effect of passive smoking, we investigated the amounts of nicotine and its metabolites in non-smokers' urine as biomarkers of passive smoking. In the experiment, 20 non-smokers were exposed to tobacco smoke for 1 hr and 3 hrs in a room in which the tobacco smoke concentration was set at about 0.15 mg/m3. The urine samples of the subjects were collected 10 times within a period of 72 hrs after the exposure to tobacco smoke. Nicotine and its metabolites in the urine of the subjects were determined by the combined methods of Prepacked Extrelut NT20 column and capillary-GC/MS-SIM. Although nicotine and cotinine were detected in the all samples of the subjects, 3-OH-cotinine was not detected in all of the urine samples. The nicotine and cotinine concentrations in the urine showed the highest level at 2 hrs and 3 hrs after exposure to tobacco smoke,respectively. The concentration of 3-OH-cotinine was low in comparison with nicotine and cotinine, and showed an upward tendency from 21 hrs. The order ofexcretive velocity was nicotine＞cotinine＞3-OH-cotinine. We developed the simplified method to analyze nicotine and its metabolites in urine at a low concentration, and recognized that there was an individual variation in metabolism of nicotine and the excretion of 3-OH cotinine after passive smoking.