ABSTRACT
Chronic Kidney Disease of uncertain etiology (CKDu) prevails among the rural dry zone farming communities in Sri Lanka and now consider as an endemic disease that occurred due to chronic exposures to toxic trace elements. Agro-genic Arsenic (As) have been widely suspected as a risk a factor for the pathogenesis of CKDu. Arsenic content in keratinized matrices such as hair and nail from CKDu patients and age matched healthy controls from an urban area were measured with Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS) after microwave aided acid digestion. The hair As levels varied from 0.007 to 0.165 µg/g and 0.005 to 0.143 µg/g with mean values of 0.037 µg/g and 0.054 µg/g in CKDu subjects and controls. In nails, the As level varied from 0.015 to 0.250 µg/g in CKDu subjects and 0.013 to 0.204 µg/g in controls. No significant differences were observed between cases and controls, thus indicate that the patients were not exposed to toxic levels of As.
