Evaluation of toxic elements in scalp hair samples of myocardial infarction patients at different stages as related to controls.

In the present study, the association of arsenic, cadmium, lead, and nickel between scalp hair samples and mortality from myocardial infarction (MI) patients at first, second, and third heart attack was studied. The biological samples of 130 MI patients (77 male and 53 female) age ranged (45-60 years), were collected and 61 healthy persons of same age group (33 male and 28 female) was selected as control subjects. The toxic elements (TEs) in biological samples were assessed by the electrothermal atomic absorption spectrophotometry prior to microwave-assisted acid digestion. The validity of methodology was checked by the certified human hair reference material (BCR 397). It was observed during the study that 78% of 32 patients of the third MI, age >50 years were expired. In these subjects, the level of As, Cd, Ni, and Pb were increased by 10.6%, 19.5%, 15.7%, and 9.8% in the scalp hair as compared to those who tolerated third MI attack (p = 0.12). The high level of toxic metals may play a role in the development of heart disease in the subjects of this study.