Lead and cadmium in primary teeth from Illinois, USA

Abstract

It has been shown that primary teeth may be used as indicators of lead and cadmium exposure in children. Two‐hundred‐and‐twenty‐seven primary teeth from Illinois, mainly from Chicago and surrounding areas, were analysed for their content of lead and cadmium by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The lead and cadmium values from Chicago were significantly higher than the corresponding values in the various surrounding districts and in the rest of the material as a whole. Significant correlations between lead and cadmium were found for the whole material, for the city of Chicago, and for the material outside Chicago. Effects of the age of the housing and of urbanization were found for lead. A small effect of the age of the housing was found for cadmium. The authors conclude that further research is needed.

Keywords:

• Lead
• cadmium
• environment
• teeth