Erratum: “Measurement of Novel, Drinking Water-Associated PFAS in Blood from Adults and Children in Wilmington, North Carolina”
Year: 2024
Type: erratum
Abstract: discovered a mass interference in calibration standards analyzed by liquid chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry that resulted in underestimation of serum concentrations for perfluoro-3,5,7,9,11-pentaoxadodecanoic acid [PFO5DoA; DTXSID50723994] in the published manuscript.Since the original analyses, authors acquired an authentic analytical standard for PFO5DoA and reanalyzed a subset of the serum samples.Authors used the PFO5DoA results from the reanalysis to develop a model to predict corrected PFO5DoA results for the remaining samples that were not reanalyzed.Details of the reanalysis and modeling and the corrected PFO5DoA results have been reported in a separate research letter. 1 Erroneous PFO5DoA results have been moved from the main manuscript to the Supporting Information for reference.However, the methodological details for PFO5DoA have been kept in the manuscript because this was one of the originally targeted analytes.None of the other analytes in the manuscript were impacted by the mass interference.In addition, there were two other errors in the manuscript: a) The 95th percentile was incorrectly used for the upper limit of the PFO4DA serum concentration interquartile range (IQR) in the text rather than the 75th percentile.b) For the fluoroethers, the mean percentage change was incorrectly used to calculate the confidence intervals around the median.Finally, references to "total PFAS" were changed to "summed PFAS," which is a more accurate representation of the methods used.To correct these errors, the following changes were made to the manuscript: Abstract The second sentence of the "Results" was corrected from "Six fluoroethers were detected in serum; Nafion by-product 2, PFO4DA, and PFO5DoA were detected in >85% of participants."to "Six fluoroethers were detected in serum; Nafion by-product 2 and PFO4DA were detected in 99% of participants."The fifth sentence of the "Results" was corrected from "In participants with repeated samples, the median decrease in fluoroether levels ranged from 28% for PFO5DoA to 65% for PFO4DA in 6 months due to wastewater discharge control." to "In participants with repeated samples, the median decrease in fluoroether levels ranged from 34% for Nafion by-product 2 to 65% for PFO4DA in 6 months due to wastewater discharge control."The last sentence of the "Results" was corrected from "The sum concentration of fluoroethers contributed 24% to participants' total serum PFAS (median: 25:3 ng=mL)." to "The sum concentration of fluoroethers contributed 23% to participants' summed serum PFAS (median: 25:0 ng=mL)." ResultsThe fourth and fifth sentences of the "PFAS Analysis in Blood" subsection of the "Results" section were corrected from "Nafion byproduct 2 and PFO4DA were detected in serum from almost all participants (99%) and PFO5DoA was detected in most (88%).Concentrations of Nafion by-product 2 [median = 2:7 ng=mL, interquartile rangeðIQRÞ = 1:5, 4:6 ng=mL] and PFO4DA (median = 2:5 ng=mL, IQR = 0:9, 12:8 ng=mL) were generally higher than PFO5DoA (median = 0:3 ng=mL, IQR = 0:2, 0:5 ng=mL)." to "Nafion by-product 2 and PFO4DA were detected in serum from almost all participants (99%).Concentrations of Nafion by-product 2 [median = 2:7 ng=mL, interquartile rangeðIQRÞ = 1:5, 4:6 ng=mL] were similar to concentrations of PFO4DA (median = 2:5 ng=mL, IQR = 0:9, 5:5 ng=mL)."The following sentence was added to the end of the first paragraph of the "PFAS Analysis in Blood" subsection of the "Results" section: "Due to a mass interference in calibration standards analyzed by LC-HRMS that impacted PFO5DoA quantitation, we are not reporting PFO5DoA results in the main manuscript.The erroneous results originally published have been moved to Table S9 for reference."The fourth through sixth sentences of the second paragraph of the "PFAS Analysis in Blood" subsection of the "Results" section were corrected from "Total PFAS concentrations ranged from 1.5 to 133:0 ng=mL, with a median PFAS level of 27:4 ng=mL in adults and 17:2 ng=mL in children (Table 4).The median summed mass concentration of five fluoroethers was 6:0 ng=mL (IQR = 1:5, 10:7 ng=mL).These fluoroethers accounted for 24% of the total mass concentration of PFAS detected in serum; the percentage was slightly higher for children (26%) than for adults (23%)." to "Summed PFAS concentrations ranged from 1.5 to 131:3 ng=mL, with a median PFAS level of 27:3 ng=mL in adults and 17:0 ng=mLin children (Table 4).The median summed mass concentration of four fluoroethers (NVHOS, PFO3OA, PFO4DA, and Nafion by-product 2) was 5:7 ng=mL (IQR = 3:0, 10:2 ng=mL).These fluoroethers accounted for 23% of the summed mass concentration of PFAS detected in serum; the percentage was slightly higher for children (25.9%) than for adults (21.6%)."The second sentence of the third paragraph of the "PFAS Analysis in Blood" subsection of the "Results" section was corrected from "Nafion by-product 2 was highly correlated with both the fluoroether PFO5DoA (r = 0:87) and the legacy PFOA (r = 0:74)."to "Nafion by-product 2 was highly correlated with the legacy PFOA (r = 0:74)."The second and third sentences of the fourth paragraph of the "PFAS Analysis in Blood" subsection of the "Results" section were corrected from "Levels of the three fluoroethers (Nafion by-product 2, PFO4DA, and PFO5DoA) decreased significantly in the 6 months between sampling (Figure 3; see also Table S7).For the fluoroethers, the median percentage decrease across the 44 participants was 34% [95% confidence interval (CI): 29, 37%] for Nafion by-product 2, 65% (95% CI: 45, 68%) for PFO4DA, and 28% (95% CI: 24, 37%) for PFO5DoA." to "Levels of the two fluoroethers (Nafion by-product 2 and PFO4DA) decreased significantly in the 6 months between sampling (Figure 3; see also Table S7).The median percentage decrease across the 44 participants was 34% [95% confidence interval (CI): 30, 38%] for Nafion by-product 2 and 65% (95% CI: 53, 76%) for PFO4DA."
DOI: 10.1289/ehp13341
Language: English
Subfield: Environmental Chemistry
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $4,500
OpenAlex ID: W4391849012