Abstract
A total of 85 samples of human urine were analyzed in this preliminary study for the presence of ochratoxin A using immunoaffinity column clean up (Ochra Test column) and HPLC, among which 65 samples were collected from the polyclinical hospital in Alzahra cityAl-Jafara region for people attending nephropathy clinical for unknown causes, 5 samples from dialysis patient and 15 samples from healthy people in Jan-Feb 2009. From 85 participants involved in this study; 41 were females (48.23%) and 44 were males (51.76%). Females aged between 24 and 69 years old and males aged between 26 and 77 years old. Analysis showed presence of ochratoxin A in urine of nephropathy patients in 4 samples from females (9.75%) with concentrations ranging from 0.49 to 0.68 μg/l and an average concentration of 0.57 μg/l in the positive samples. 9 samples from males were positive (20.45% ) with concentrations ranging from 0.20 to 2.60 μg/l and an average of 0.70 μg/l. The lowest concentration recorded in this study was 0.20 μg/l and the highest was 2.60 μg/l in male samples. Ochratoxin A was not detected in urine samples of dialysis patient and healthy samples at detection limit of 0.20 μg/l. In humans, ochratoxin A is metabolized very slowly with a half life of more than 35 days and presence of this toxin in human urine is considerd a serious health problem which results from consumption of food contaminated with ochratoxin A.