Case Study for Selected Heavy Elements in Blood and Plasma from Six Female Patients with Systemic Sclerosis (Scleroderma, SSc). The Concentrations of Mercury, Lead, Antimony, Cobalt, Copper, and Zinc

Samples of total blood (1T-6T) were collected from six patients (1-6) with Systemic Sclerosis (SSc) and ana- lyzed for their content of mercury, lead, antimony, cobalt, copper, and zinc through AASGF (atomic absorption spectros- copy - graphite furnace), HR-ICP-MS (high resolution inductively-coupled plasma mass spectroscopy) and CVAAT (cold vapor atomic absorption technique). The blood samples (7CT, 8CT) from two "healthy subjects" (7, 8) were also col- lected and analyzed. Furthermore, plasma samples (1P-6P, and 7CP and 8CP) were prepared from fresh blood samples and analyzed for the same elements. The summary for Hg, usually considered highly toxic, is as follows. Interestingly, three of six total blood samples had concentrations of mercury (1T, 11.0(4) μg/L; 2T, 8.2(3); 4T, 7.4(3)) significantly higher than the control from this work (5.6(6) μg/L) and the control from the literature (5.3 μg/L). The concentration of lead for the total blood samples is in the range 82.7(5) - 36.9(5) μg/L and agrees well with average values for women from literature, 70 μg/L. The average concentration for the essential element zinc for the samples 1T-6T is 6658 μg/L, which compares well with the mean value from literature (5561 μg/L for "healthy subjects").