A pilot biomonitoring study of bladder tumor antigen (BTA) in aflatoxin exposed Nigerian villagers

摘要

Objective To correlate the levels of bladder tumour antigen (BTA) with aflatoxin M1 (AFM) in a human population in Nigeria. Subjects and methods A pilot, observational study was conducted with 22 human subjects randomly recruited from a Nigerian rural community. Serum and first morning urine of participants were analysed for human BTA and AFM1, respectively, using quantitative ELISA assays. Results All the subjects were positive to AFM1 (mean=0.235±0.072ng/mL) while 19 were positive to BTA (mean=2.340±1.741ng/mL). A negative relationship occurred between human BTA and AFM level (r=?0.239; P =0.285). Human BTA (2.86±2.43ng/mL; P =0.306) and AFM1 (0.258±0.065ng/mL; P =0.643) were higher in subjects 1–20 years. The two biomarkers were not also associated with sexes of the participants ( P> 0.05), although they were higher in the female subjects. Conclusion This study showed that there may not be a connection between aflatoxin exposure and human BTA which is one of the biomarkers of bladder cancer.