Validation of the Method of Selected Polychlorinated Biphenyls Determination in Human Milk Samples

A method for determination of trace concentrations of individual PCB congeners in human milk was validated. The analytical procedure included the following steps: acetone : hexane extraction, clean-up of extracts with concentrated sulfuric acid and solid phase extraction (SPE) on Florisil. The identification and quantification of analytes in purified extracts were carried out by high-resolution gas chromatography (HRGC) with electron capture detection (ECD) and/or with low-resolution mass spectrometry (LRMS). Recoveries of 14 PCB congeners from spiked cow milk samples, based on HRGC-ECD were between 87.3 and 93.6%. The precision of analyte determination was established as close to or less than 10%. The detection limits ranged between 0.14 and 0.26 ng/g fat and the quantification limits between 0.57 and 0.86 ng/g fat. The method was linear and characterized by good correlation coefficients (>0.99) for most of the compounds studied. The quality of the method under validation was verified by the analysis of ...