Early markers of nephrotoxicity: Detection of children at risk from environmental pollution

The current investigation is the largest to date concerned with the assessm ent of the value of different urinary biomarkers to detect nephrotoxic effe cts in children exposed to cadmium and lead. A battery of tests which had p roved valuable in previous studies on men and women where used, together wi th a number of more recently developed biomarkers. No significant effect of sex and age were found but the location of the children (site) was importa nt The results indicated that there might have been variability in either t he assay procedures or sample handling between the different sites. A small group of tests were found to be elevated following toxic exposure and shou ld be used in future studies. However there was considerable variation in t he degree of exposure amongst the control groups from different countries a nd in the test groups. This made pooling of the data difficult but the stud y does highlight the way forward and demonstrates that children can be at r isk from environmental exposure to toxins at a lower level than is acceptab le for adults.