Brazil is one of the largest veterinary markets in the world, and aquaculture, in particular fish farming, is the fastest growing sector of animal food production in the country. In fish farming, antimicrobials, including sulfonamides, are used for the treatment of bacterial diseases. Sulfonamides belong to an important group of synthetic antimicrobial agents that have been used in human and veterinary medicine for over 60 years. Recently, these drugs have been extensively employed in animals intended to produce food for human consumption.
In a recent paper authored by Katia Nunes et al., published in Journal of Analytical Methods in Chemistry (doi.org/10.1155/2018/4506754), a multiresidue method for detecting and quantifying sulfonamides (sulfapyridine, sulfamerazine, sulfathiazole, sulfamethazine, sulfadimethoxine, sulfamethoxazole, and sulfamethoxypyridazine) and trimethoprim in tilapia fillet (Oreochromis niloticus) was developed and validated using UCT’s QuEChERS clean-up products in conjunction with liquid chromatography- mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).