Blood chemistry, alpha-fetoprotein and hepatitis B surface antigen in Yusho

Background and Objective:

An incident of accidental human exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) occurred in the western part of Japan in 1968. The disease is known as Yusho, because its cause was the ingestion of rice bran oil that was contaminated with PCBs. The various symptoms such as acneform skin eruptions were observed in the early stage in Yusho patients. An important fact is that polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) were detected in the contaminated rice oil. PCDFs have a much higher toxicity than do PCBs. Analysis of blood concentration of PCDFs was performed throughout Japan in 2002. There have been no reports on the relationship between blood concentration of PCDFs and blood chemistry, alpha-fetoprotein or hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in Yusho. This is the first study to report on the relationship between blood concentration of PCDFs and blood chemistry, alpha-fetoprotein or HBsAg in Yusho.

Methods:

We analyzed blood chemistry by measuring the following 20 items—total protein, serum albumin, alanine and aspartate aminotransferase, lactate dehydrogenase, alkaline phosphatase, leucine aminopeptidase, gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), total bilirubin, conjugated bilirubin, cholinesterase, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, triglyceride, glucose, amylase, creatine kinase, urea nitrogen, creatinine and uric acid. Alpha-fetoprotein and HBsAg were also measured. We studied the relationship between blood concentrations of total PCDFs and the items of the blood chemistry analysis, alpha-fetoprotein and HBsAg.

Results:

Of the 20 items of blood chemistry, alpha-fetoprotein and HBsAg, we found three items (GGT, HDL cholesterol and creatinine) were significantly related to the total PCDF level using three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Conclusion:

A significant relationship between three items of the blood chemistry analysis (GGTP, HDL cholesterol and creatinine) and total PCDF levels in the blood was observed in 2002. The blood concentrations of total PCBs and PCDFs have now decreased; however, the PCDFs in patients with Yusho still affect blood chemistry.