فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

Background: A comparison of oral/inhaled opium addicts with a healthy control group was investigated. Using the graphite furnace atomic absorption spectroscopy (GF-AAS) followed by chemometric analysis, sub-to-low µg L-1 concentrations of blood lead level (BLL) was detected in both the addict and the control groups.Materials and Methods: In this study, BLL of 78 subjects (Iranian volunteers) in two opium-addicted (patient group)and healthy control groups was evaluated. All the volunteers were men. The patient group was comprised of 39 patients who used opium orally or by inhalation with a mean age of 48.6 ± 7.3 years. The patient group was selected through systematic incidental sampling from 150 orally or by inhalation opium-addicted patients referred to Shariati Hospital located in Tehran .The control group (39 subjects) was matched with the patient group with regard to age and sex and with a mean age of 44.8 ± 5.6 years.Results: The mean concentration of lead was found to be significantly lower (P = 0.0001) in control group (16.70 ±12.51 µg/dL) compared to addicts (57.04 ± 46.03 µg/dL). When the addicts were divided into various age groups, thereappeared to be a significant difference (p= 0.0451) in blood lead concentration as a function of age, however when thecontrol group was considered, no difference was observed (P = 0.51). Also, a tendency (P = 0.048) towards increasingBLL with respect to BMI was observed due to drug consumption, but there was no significant variation between BLLconcentration and BMI when the control group was considered (P = 0.35).Conclusions: It was observed that the BLL in opium-addicts was significantly higher than that of the healthy controlgroup. The mean difference of both groups was statistically significant