TABLE 4 |.

Presence of microplastics in human samples: Feces and lungs.

Endpoint	n	Method	No of microplastics	Size and shape	Polymer type	Ref
Microplastics isolation from human stool	8	*Chemical digestion of organic material. *Filtration through a 50 um metal sieve. *Resuspended in ultrapure water, filtered via vacuum system and dried.*Polymer composition by FTIR	100% samples had microplastic. Median: 20 microplastics/10 g (range 18 to 172)	Size range from 50 to 500 um sizes. Most were fragments or films. Rarely spheres and fibers	9 types: PP, PET, PS, PE, POM, PC, PA, PVC, PU The most abundant PP and PET (present in all samples)	Schwabl et al.,(2019)
	10	*Fenton’s reagent and nitric acid digestion* vacumm filtration steps in between digestions* polymer composition by Raman spectra	40% samples had microplastic	>1 um	The microplastics were identified as PBT and PVB particles	Yan et al.,(2020)
Presence of plastic fibers in human lung tissue	114	*Fresh lung specimens were analyzed in dual-slide chambers under white light, fluorescent light, polarizing light and phase contrast light. *Paraffin embedded lung tissue histopathological slides were analyzed	87% samples had fibers. 83% of nonneoplastic lung specimens and 97% of malignant lung specimens contained inhaled fibers		The histopathological slides confirmed the presence of cellulosic and plastic fibers in the lungs identified by polarized light	Pauly et al.,(1998)

Abbreviations: Polyethylene PE, Polyester PET, Polypropylene PP, Polystyrene PS, Polyamide (nylon) PA, Polyvinyl chloride PVC, Polyoxymethylene POM, Polybutylene terephthalate PBT, Polyvinyl ether PVE, Polycarbonate PC, Polyurethane PU.