Rare earth elements and technology-related trace metals in paediatric scalp hair: a 2001 urban baseline from Spain
Rare earth elements (REEs) and technology-related trace elements are increasingly used in modern products and processes, but biomonitoring data in healthy children and adolescents remain scarce; scalp hair provides a practical, integrative matrix for assessing multi-element patterns over time. Scalp...
| Autores: | , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2026 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Alcalá (UAH) |
| Repositorio: | e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/68687 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10017/68687 https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jox16010038 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Rare earth elements Emerging trace metals Hair biomonitoring Children Adolescents Reference values Spain Medicina Medicine |
| Sumario: | Rare earth elements (REEs) and technology-related trace elements are increasingly used in modern products and processes, but biomonitoring data in healthy children and adolescents remain scarce; scalp hair provides a practical, integrative matrix for assessing multi-element patterns over time. Scalp hair collected in April–May 2001 from children (6–9 years; n = 120) and adolescents (13–16 years; n = 97) living in Alcalá de Henares (Spain) was retrieved from archival storage and analysed in 2025 using a single QA/QC-controlled ICP–MS workflow. Seven REEs (Ce, La, Pr, Nd, Gd, Er, and Y) and nine technologyrelated trace elements (Bi, Sb, Th, U, Pd, Pt, Rh, Ir, and Rb) were quantified after rigorous decontamination; left-censored data were treated using Kaplan–Meier, regression on order statistics, and maximum-likelihood approaches, and population reference values were derived as percentile-based upper limits (P95, 95% CI). In children, REEs were frequently detected and showed strong within-suite covariation, with medians in the low ng g−1 range (e.g., Ce ≈ 0.011 µg g−1 ; La ≈ 0.007 µg g−1 ), whereas in adolescents, most REEs were near reporting limits. Sb and U were ubiquitous in both age groups, while platinum-group elements were largely undetected. Shale-normalised REE patterns were subparallel across normalisers, La/Ce anomalies were centred below unity, and weak soil–hair correlations suggested multiple microenvironmental exposure pathways. These data provide a robust pre-diffusion baseline for REE metals in European youth, offering a benchmark for future urban exposome assessments. |
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