Food safety evaluation for the use of albendazole in fish: residual depletion profile and withdrawal period estimation.

Due to the lack of drugs regulated for aquaculture, we have evaluated the use of albendazole (ABZ) - a potential drug to be regulated for fish - under food safety perspectives assessing the depletion profile of ABZ and its main metabolites (albendazole sulphoxide - ABZSO, albendazole sulphone - ABZSO(2) and albendazole amino sulphone - ABZ-2-NH2SO2) in fish fillets (muscle and skin) after single dose oral administration of 10 mg ABZ kg(-1) body weight. For the drug administration, a suitable procedure for ABZ incorporation into fish feed was employed, obtaining good homogeneity of ABZ concentration among feed pellets (CV<4.1%) and low drug leaching when medicated feed remained in the water for up to 60 min (<2.7%). After medication, fish were euthanised at 8, 12, 24, 48, 72, 96 and 120 h and fillets collected. Depletion studies in various fish species (patinga and tilapia) were conducted simultaneously, under water temperature at 30.4 +/- 0.3 degrees C and pH 6.8 +/- 0.1. The highest concentrations for the sum of residues (ABZ, ABZSO, ABZSO(2) and ABZ-2-NH2SO2) in fish fillet were 1210 ng g(-1) in patinga and 637 ng g(-1) in tilapia. Under the employed rearing conditions, the obtained results did not indicate a requirement for a minimum withdrawal period to be proposed for tilapia considering the maximum residue limit of 100 mu g g(-1), since the determined residual concentration was 更多