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Updated: Aug 6, 2026

Quantifying X-Ray Fluorescence Data Using MAPS
Published on: February 17, 2018
Validation of X-ray fluorescence-measured Swine femur lead against atomic absorption spectrometry
A C Todd1, E L Moshier, S Carroll
1Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, The Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA. andrew.todd@mssm.edu
Abstract:
The aim of this study was to apply the technique of (109)Cd-based K-shell X-ray fluorescence (XRF) bone lead measurements to swine femurs and to validate the concentrations obtained therefrom against an independent chemical measurement of bone lead: atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). The femurs ranged in lead concentration from 1.0 to 24.5 microg of lead per gram of ashed bone, as measured by AAS. On average, XRF overestimated AAS-measured femur lead by 2.6 microg/g [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.1-4.0 microg/g], approximately 2 microg/g poorer than that observed in studies of human tibiae. Measurements of swine femur and, by extension, of nonhuman bones may require adjustment of the XRF spectrum peak extraction method.
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