Adipose tissue of inhabitants of the Gdansk city located at the southern coast of the Baltic Sea and of the province of Skierniewice of inland Poland have been investigated for congeners of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) by the capillary GC-MS technique. PCB IUPAC No. 153 was a high contributor of the congener occupying 23% of the total PCB content, and together with No. 138 of 18% and No. 180 of 13% were the most prevalent members. Samples taken from Gdansk citizens in 1990 contained 1.5 +/- 1.3 mug/g of total PCBs on a fat weight basis while the citizens from the province of Skierniewice, sampled in 1979, contained 1.2 +/- 0.4 mug/g, which seemed to indicate a persistent PCB exposure in Poland. Among Gdansk citizens, randomly selected autopsy samples of liver cancer from dead persons contained 4.7 mug/g of PCBs, while in all other samples the level was between 0.75 and 1.9 mug/g of PCBs. TCDD TEQ of 13 detectable coplanar members of PCBs in adipose tissue of Gdansk, and Skierniewice inhabitants, was 210 and 190 pg/g on a lipid weight basis, respectively, including 45 and 59 pg/g of non-ortho, 142 and 110 pg/g of mono-ortho and 24 and 16 pg/g of di-ortho chlorobiphenyls. A fingerprint of chlorobiphenyl composition in the samples examined was virtually the same for human adipose tissue taken in 1990 from the coastal city of Gdansk and in 1979 from the inland province of Skierniewice, in spite of geographic variations and sampling intervals.
