Elemental Hair Analysis: A Review of Procedures and Applications

The document from November 1, 2017, provides a detailed review of elemental hair analysis, emphasizing its applications in toxicology, clinical studies, environmental and forensic investigations, and the challenges associated with the technique. It highlights the importance of inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and laser ablation ICP-MS (LA-ICP-MS) for quantitative and spatial resolution analysis. The review discusses the influence of factors like gender, age, lifestyle, and environmental exposures on hair composition and the potential of hair as a biomarker for disease diagnostics and environmental exposure assessment. It also addresses the challenges in standardizing methods, the need for careful evaluation of each step in the process, and the establishment of reliable reference values. The document concludes that with standardized methods, hair elemental analysis could provide valuable data for assessing exposure and health status, but also notes skepticism regarding its reliability and the need for further exploration and standardization in the field.