Reproducibility of urinary phthalate metabolites in first morning urine samples

Phthalates are ubiquitous in our modern environment because of their use in plastics and cosmetic products. Phthalate monoesters--primarily monoethylhexyl phthalate and monobutyl phthalate--are reproductive and developmental toxicants in animals. Accurate measures of phthalate exposure are needed to assess their human health effects. Phthalate monoesters have a biologic half-life of approximately 12 hr, and little is known about the temporal variability and daily reproducibility of urinary measures in humans. To explore these aspects, we measured seven phthalate monoesters and creatinine concentration in two consecutive first-morning urine specimens from 46 African-American women, ages 35-49 years, residing in the Washington, DC, area in 1996-1997. We measured phthalate monoesters using high-pressure liquid chromatography followed by tandem mass spectrometry on a triple quadrupole instrument using atmospheric pressure chemical ionization. We detected four phthalate monoesters in all subjects, with median levels of 31 ng/mL for monobenzyl phthalate (mBzP), 53 ng/mL for monobutyl phthalate (mBP), 211 ng/mL for monoethyl phthalate (mEP), and 7.3 ng/mL for monoethylhexyl phthalate (mEHP). These were similar to concentrations reported for other populations using spot urine specimens. Phthalate levels did not differ between the two sampling days. The Pearson correlation coefficient between the concentrations on the 2 days was 0.8 for mBP, 0.7 for mEHP, 0.6 for mEP, and 0.5 for mBzP. These results suggest that even with the short half-lives of phthalates, women's patterns of exposure may be sufficiently stable to assign an exposure level based on a single first morning void urine measurement.