Human Exposure to Rare Earth Elements
Patrick Parsons, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health and
Department of Environmental Health Sciences, State University of New York at Albany,
New York, USA
ABSTRACT
Patients on long-term parenteral nutrition (PN) can be exposed to trace contaminants, e.g., Al,
in PN solutions. We previously reported excessive accumulation of Al in the bones of PN
patients. We carried out additional analyses of these bones, obtained post-mortem, for the rare
earth elements (REEs). Trabecular bones were collected at autopsy from 7 PN patients who
received therapy for 2–21 (ave. 15) years; control bones consisted of 18 samples from hip/knee
replacement surgeries. Acid digested bones and PN solutions were analyzed for REEs using
inductively coupled plasma - tandem mass spectrometry (ICP-MS/MS). Non-parametric
statistics were used to explore differences between patient and control bones. Bone REE
content was normalized to known values for the earth’s upper crust. Up to 16 REEs were
detected in patient bone samples. REE content varied from 3 –16000 ng/g. In the control group
the lighter REEs La, Ce, and Nd were detected in 16 of the samples and Pr in 15; the remaining
REEs were detected in <5 of the samples. PN bones were significantly enriched (p <0.001–
0.0004) with REEs compared to controls. The REE Gadolinium (Gd) was highly enriched in two
of the patient bones. Analysis of PN solutions revealed trace contamination with many REEs
(10–3000 ng/L), and the REE pattern was similar to that found in PN bones, normalized to
crustal content.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Patrick Parsons is currently Chief, Laboratory of Inorganic and Nuclear Chemistry at the NY
State Department of Health’s Wadsworth Center and Deputy Director of the Division of
Environmental Health Sciences. He holds a joint academic appointment at the University at
Albany, where he is Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences.
Dr. Parsons received his Ph.D. degree in 1983 in Chemistry from the University of London, and
from 1984 to 1986 he was a Visiting Fellow at NIH.
For more than 35 years, Dr. Parsons’ research has focused on developing novel analytical
techniques based on atomic spectrometry for use in human biomonitoring, measuring toxic
metals in blood, urine, bone and other tissues and body fluids, as well as in food and
environmental matrices. He is is currently supported by NIH and CDC funding. Current projects
includes coupling separation techniques with inorganic mass spectrometry for characterizing
metal species in biological tissues and fluids; and measuring human exposure to the long-lived
actinides by Sector Field-ICP-MS. Dr. Parsons recently received NIH grant funding to work on
monochromatic XRF instrumentation to characterize personal exposure to toxic metals. He has
authored or coauthored more than 150 peer reviewed papers and 12 book chapters.
Dr. Parsons is a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the American
Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC), and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry,
London.
th
8 Annual NYS Biotechnology Symposium
- May 19 & 20, 2016 -