Assessment of Preschool Children’s Exposure Levels to Organophosphate and Pyrethroid Pesticide : A Human Biomonitoring Study in Two Turkish Provinces

Abstract Pesticides are products that were developed for the benefit of humanity. However, now they are one of the critical risk factors threatening the environment, and they create a significant threat to the environmental health of children. Organophosphate (OP) and pyrethroid (PYR) pesticides are widely used in Turkey as well as all over the world. The main focus of this presented study was to analyze the OP and PYR exposure levels in urine samples obtained from 3–6 year old Turkish preschool children who lives in the Ankara (n:132) and Mersin (n:54) provinces. In order to conduct the determination of three non-specific metabolites of PYR insecticides and four non-specific and one specific metabolite of OPs LC-MS/MS quantitative analyses were employed. The non-specific PYR metabolite 3-phenoxybenzoic acid (3-PBA) (87.1%; n = 162) and the specific OP metabolite 3,5,6-Trichloro-2-pyridinol (TCPY) (60.2%; n = 112) were the most frequently detected metabolites in all urine samples. The mean concentrations of 3-PBA and TCPY were 0.38 ± 0.8 and 0.11 ± 0.43 ng/g creatinine, respectively. Although due to the large individual variation no statistically differences were found between 3-PBA (p = 0.9969) and TCPY (p = 0.6558) urine levels in the two provinces, significant exposure differences were determined both between provinces and within the province in terms of gender. Risk assessment strategies performed in light of our findings do not disclose any proof of a possible health problems related to analyzed pesticide exposure in Turkish children.