Organohalogenated contaminants (OHCs) in the serum and hair of pet cats and dogs: Biosentinels of indoor pollution

Are pet dogs good sentinels of human exposure to environmental polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, organochlorine pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls?

“…The four isomers were detected in both species, but at very low concentrations (the median value was 0 ng/g lw in all cases). The mean values of this group of pollutants in dogs were higher than those reported in Pakistan in 2013 (Ali et al 2013), but the median values were much lower, indicating that there was a high dispersion of the concentrations. However, it should be noted that the sample sizes of both studies were very different, being much higher in this study (n = 87 vs. 16), so probably the median value of this study more accurately reflects the actual level of contamination in this species.…”

“…Reversely, in samples of canine plasma the situation was radically different, as the median value was 0 ng/g lw, and detection frequency did not exceed 8% for any of these analytes. This had already been described in dogs of Pakistan and Japan (Kunisue et al 2005;Ali et al 2013), and also in Russian wolves (Shore et al 2001), so it has been suggested that canines, unlike many other mammalian species, do not accumulate these pollutants throughout their life, probably because they are equipped with efficient mechanisms of biotransformation and elimination (Kunisue et al 2005). All the evidences set out above, in which the values of most of the contaminants in this group were much higher in humans than in dogs, especially so different pollution profiles between the two species, indicate that the dog is not a good indicator of human exposure to OCPs.…”

“…In any case, it has also been suggested that the canines could have the ability to efficiently metabolize PCBs, or at least some congeners (Kunisue et al 2005), since the few studies that have investigated the levels of these pollutants in dogs have also reported a very low level thereof as compared to those commonly found in mammalian species (Shore et al 2001;Kunisue et al 2005;Ali et al 2013).…”

“…Numerous studies have revealed that POPs, individually and in combination, may contribute to the development of severe health problems such as immune suppression, genotoxic effects or cancer and are of public health concern worldwide (WHO 2003;Kortenkamp 2007;Kortenkamp et al 2007Kortenkamp et al , 2011Valeron et al 2009;Lauby-Secretan et al 2013;Jarvis et al 2014). As far as we know, there is no research that has assessed exposure to PAHs in dogs to date, and very few scientific studies have evaluated organochlorine contamination of dogs and cats (Kunisue et al 2005;Storelli et al 2009;Ali et al 2013;Dirtu et al 2013). These studies have indicated that dogs, as occurs with other canines (Georgii et al 1994;Shore et al 2001), accumulated minor amounts of some of these compounds (particularly DDT and its metabolites, and the highly chlorinated biphenyls) than other mammalian species.…”

The assessment of daily dietary intake reveals the existence of a different pattern of bioaccumulation of chlorinated pollutants between domestic dogs and cats

“…So, there are numerous authors that have explored the potential of dogs and cats in this sense (Andrade et al, 2010;Baker et al, 2005;Calderón-Garciduenas et al, 2001;Heyder and Takenaka, 1996;Rabinowitz et al, 2008;Reif, 2011). However, in the case of exposure to POPs the results have been variable, because although some authors have suggested that cats seem to be adequate sentinels of human exposure to these contaminants (Ali et al, 2013;Dirtu et al, 2013;Guo et al, 2012), the role of dogs as such does not seem so clear Sévère et al, 2015). One reason is that several authors have reported that, intriguingly, dogs and other canines exhibit extremely low levels of some of the more abundant POPs in most mammals (including cats and humans), such as DDE and DDT, which suggests a higher metabolic capacity of these animals (Georgii et al, 1994;Kunisue et al, 2005;Ruiz-Suárez et al, 2015;Sévère et al, 2015;Shore et al, 2001;Storelli et al, 2009).…”