human contamination with organochlorine pesticides in iran: a systematic review

background: the presence of organochlorine pesticides in the environment is a serious threat to human health and requires continuous monitoring. therefore, in the present systematic review, the residual amount of different organochlorine pesticides in human samples has been investigated.   methods: all accessible databases in english and farsi were searched by using organochlorine and related pesticides keywords in farsi databases including sid, iranmedex, magiran and medlib and english databases including pubmed and google scholar. all articles which had evaluated one of the organochlorine pesticides were included. data including the research data, sample size, location, biologic sample, pesticide type and the amount of organochlorine pesticide measured were extracted.   results: a total of 17 documented cases were extracted from 10 primary studies in which mean residual organochlorine pepticides in human had been determined. the studied samples were 5 samples of pregnant women's hair, 10 samples of maternal milk, and 2 samples of fat tissue. the residual amount of ddt and its isomers, bhc and its isomers, hch and its isomers, hcb, heptachlor epoxide, dieldrin and lindane were recorded for the studied samples.   conclusion: this review showed that human exposure to organochlorine pesticides has been significant in iran.