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Assessment of the Relation between Biomarkers for Smoking and Biomarkers for Acrylamide Exposure in Humans

Division of Laboratory Sciences, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia

Requests for reprints: Hubert W. Vesper, Division of Laboratory Sciences, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Highway, Northeast (MS F-25), Atlanta, GA. Phone: 770-488-4191; Fax: 404-638-5393. E-mail: HVesper{at}cdc.gov

Smoking is an important source of acrylamide exposure in the general population. We assessed the relationship between hemoglobin adducts of acrylamide (HbAA) and glycidamide (HbGA) as biomarkers of acrylamide exposure and plasma cotinine (PC) as biomarkers of tobacco smoke exposure in 94 men and 67 women. The median (5th-95th percentile) biomarker concentrations (pmol/g Hb) in the group of individuals with PC concentrations of 10 ng/mL were 51 (29-155) and 34 (16-117) for HbAA and HbGA, respectively. They were significantly lower than those in the group of individuals with PC concentrations of >10 ng/mL [194 (87-403) and 107 (41-215) for HbAA and HbGA, respectively]. In individuals with PC concentrations of <1 ng/mL, HbAA and HbGA were similar to those observed in the group with PC values of 10 ng/mL. The intersubject variability was profoundly smaller in the group with PC values of 10 ng/mL compared with the group with PC values of >10 ng/mL. Although HbAA and HbGA could be categorized into distinguishable groups using PC concentration ranges commonly used to categorize presumed smokers and nonsmokers, no significant relationship was observed between these two biomarkers and PC within each group. The different exposure periods reflected by these biomarkers and the resulting different susceptibility to short-term variations in exposure patterns may in part explain these observations. The findings suggest that tobacco smoke exposure in individuals with PC values of <1 ng/mL has only a minimal effect on HbAA and HbGA. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(11):2471–8)