Humans are exposed to toxic element arsenic (As) from air, food and water. The current study was performed to investigate the levels of arsenic in the internal organs (liver, kidney cortex, lung, cerebrum, abdominal muscle and abdominal skin) and to find out correlation with age and interrelationship between tissues in Korean human hodies who had lived in Seoul or Gyeonggi Province and Honam district. The tissues from 43 Korean cadavers were digested with microwave digestion system and arsenic was determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). The mean recovery percentages of arsenic in liver were about 80% and arsenic concentrations in human tissues were almost uniform. The mean level of arsellic in internal tissues were as follow ; liver 44.556±25.199ppb, kidney cortex 42.652±22.082ppb, lung 31.020±17.504ppb, cerebrum 35.703±22.591 ppb, muscle 43.415±26.619 ppb and skin 42.106±25.831 ppb. No significant difference was found in the levels of arsenic between sexes. Meanwhile significant differences between districts where they had lived were found in all tissues tested. The levels of arsenic in the tissues of cadavers who had lived in Seoul Gyeonggi Province were higher than those of Honam district. In addition a positive correlation between As concentration and age was observed only in the cerebrum (p<0.05). A significantly high correlations between tissues were observed in all tissues tested. This result also shows that the distribution of arsenic is uniform in internal tissues.
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