Veterinary drugs residues: a review of the latest analytical research on sample preparation and LC-MS based methods

Abstract

The world population is increasing and there is a growing demand for food, leading to intensification of farming methods and a requirement for more coadjuvants. Potential high profits sometimes lead to fraudulent use of drugs and pesticides. Veterinary drugs in particular can pose a real risk to human health if their residues are allowed to enter the food chain. Parent drugs and their metabolites can occur in foodstuffs individually or as multicomponent mixtures with enhanced adverse effects. In order to protect consumer safety, the European Union has established lists of forbidden substances, maximum residue limits for authorised drugs and precise criteria for confirmation analyses and interpretation of the results. Due to their nature and potential danger, the 'best available technique' should always be applied. Following this principle, this review examines the procedures and techniques applied to monitoring pharmaceutical products of major concern (e.g. anthelmintics, NSAIDs, corticosteroids, coccidiostats) in foods of animal origin, discussing advances over the past five years and future trends in the field of food safety. Our goal was both to focus attention on this important topic and to provide a selection of the most relevant recent papers on drug residues in foodstuffs.

Advances in the Analysis of Veterinary Drug Residues in Food Matrices by Capillary Electrophoresis Techniques

“…Regarding the analysis of NSAIDs in animal feed, LC-MS was the most widely used approach, reaching LOQ values around ng/mL [10,101]. Nevertheless, off-line and on-line stacking procedures could lead to promising sensitive CE methods.…”

“…In addition, there is a lack of regulation for veterinary drug residues (for example, for fluoroquinolones used as antimicrobials) in many foods, including baby foods [7]. EU guidelines suggest the use of the liquid chromatography (LC) technique; in particular, LC coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) was the most used approach to detect and analyze drug residues in complex matrices, such as milk and dietary products [8][9][10][11][12]. In addition, ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) coupled with MS represented a very promising powerful tool to detect analytes in traces [13].…”

TMT‐Based Proteomics Profiling of Bovine Liver Underscores Protein Markers of Anabolic Treatments

“…Surveillance is based on inspections and on sample analyses using screening and confirmatory methods fulfilling the requirements established by Commission Decision 657/2002/EC . All recent most sensitive and informative methods are based on mass spectrometry combined with chromatographic separation . However, following standard analytical protocols, only known targeted molecules can be monitored and effectively measured.…”

Simultaneous Determination of Pesticides and Veterinary Pharmaceuticals in Environmental Water Samples by UHPLC–Quadrupole-Orbitrap HRMS Combined with On-Line Solid-Phase Extraction

“…Because their release rates are higher than their degradation rates, the chemicals from these sources are persistent in the environment [8,[13][14][15]. Pesticides and veterinary pharmaceuticals can be released into the surface water and groundwater through various pathways (e.g., runoff from agricultural lands, direct discharge of effluents from wastewater treatment plants, and direct discharge of animal wastewater from livestock farms) [8,[16][17][18][19]. Table 1.…”