Abstract:
Nicotine is an alkaloid, one of the most toxic and rapidly acting poisons, which is contained in tobacco plants widely used for smoking and insecticides. The main urinary metabolite of nicotine is cotinine. The purpose of this study is to assess occupational nicotine exposure and urinary metabolite of nicotine using gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) and subjective symptoms occurrence among workers in dry tobacco leaf preparation. The study subjects were thirty workers in Pak-kwaure community, Muang district. Sukhothai province, Thailand. The nicotine exposure of the workers was measured by monitoring atmospheric nicotine concentration in the breathing zone and nicotine residue on hands by wiping. The accuracy, precision and detection limit of the method developed for analysis of atmospheric nicotine and nicotine residue on hands and urinary cotinine metabolite was also tested by the GC-MS analysis method. Results revealed that the detection limit of the method were 2.021 ng for nicotine and 1.192 ng for cotinine. The percent recoveries of nicotine were 90.60-101.32% with percent coefficients of variations of less than 4%. The percent recoveries of cotinine were 97.11-103.89% with percent coefficients of variations of less than 4%. The average occupational atmospheric nicotine exposure and nicotine residue on hands among workers was 0.105 mg/m and 0.24 pg/cm?, respectively. The average urinary cotinine concentration of workers was 3.084 ug/ml. Moreover, there was a good significant correlation between the nicotine dust in air and nicotine residue on hands with urinary cotinine excretion by r = 0.987; p-value < 0.05 and r = 0.978; p-value < 0.05, respectively. Symptoms, including headache, nausea, weakness, dizziness, and increased perspiration were found mostly among exposed workers in the post tobacco curing process (p-value <0.05). There was a fairly good significant correlation between the occupational nicotine residue on hands among workers in the post tobacco curing process and numbers of symptoms occurring (p-value < 0.05).
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