Evaluation of Risk Factors Associated with Selected Elements in Veterinary Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Using ICP-MS.

One of the major concerns for animal health is the pollution of food and medicines given to animals by non-essential and toxic elements, which also poses a risk to human health via the food chain. The essential (Ca, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, and Ni) and non-essential elements (Li, Ti, V, Ga, Ag, Cd, In, Ba, Bi, Th, and U) were monitored using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) in veterinary active pharmaceutical ingredients (V APIs). Samples were divided into four groups including antibiotic (14 samples), anthelmintic (7 samples), anticoccidial (5 samples), and externally used (5 samples). The results of the antibiotic group had the highest concentrations of most elements. The concentrations of the targeted elements were below the permissible limits as recommended by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP). The target hazard quotient (THQ) and the total target hazard quotient (TTHQ) were applied to evaluate the animal health risk associated with the exposure of the target elements in V API samples; the results showed that elements do not pose any risk to animals in all samples as indicated by THQ values less than 1. Validation parameters performed in this study showed good accuracy and validity of the ICP-MS analysis method, with good linearity (R ˃ 0.990), and the relative standard deviations (%RSD) were < 4% for all target elements. Analysis of variance (ANOVA-one way) was used to compare the means of veterinary drug groups for all targeted elements. The results showed that all elements have p-values < 0.05 except Cr and Fe.