Interrelations between hair content, intravenous dose and retention of Cd in different rat tissues

Abstract

The Cd content in induced hair decreases with time between Cd injection and hair induction. This decline in Cd deposition in newly grown hair is faster than can be attributed to its decline in the plasma. Deposition in the ventrally-induced hair is consistently higher than in the dorsal site. In spontaneously growing “normal” hair, the Cd content is low at the beginning and remains practically unchanged until the end of the experiment. The bulk of Cd is taken up by the liver right after injection. During the experiment (93 d) Cd in the whole body, liver, brain, peripheral blood cells and plasma decreases at different rates, whereas Cd in the kidney increases. The lower dose of Cd (0.125 μg per rat) is handled by the organism in the same way as the higher one (12.500 μg per rat), i.e., the amounts of Cd found in corresponding samples of the two dose groups of hair, total body, tissues and blood are proportional to the doses administered. A direct relationship between the behaviour of Cd concentrations in hair and that of the Cd content of the total body, the tissues or plasma, could not be found.