A QuEChERS Based Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry Method for the Determination of Hormones in Chicken

Abstract

Background: chickens are important source of food that provide more than 67.6% of the daily protein. Moreover, chicken meat contains a high level of various B vitamins and can even lessen age-related memory issues. Hormones are chemicals that are secreted by the endocrine glands to the blood stream in order to achieve the stimulatory effect on various different types of cells. Therefore, some breeders use these growth hormones in the feed of chicken in order to stimulate their growth and increase meat and egg production of the chicken. However, this hormonal residues should not exceed a specific limit in the meat of the chicken due to its negative effect on humans. The aim of this project is to determine whether hormones are present in the chicken meat using QuEChERS method and LC/MS-MS using high performance liquid chromatography and calculating the human exposure to the hormonal hazard. Therefore, 30 samples were collected and analyzed to determine the presence of hormonal residues in the meat using LC/MS-MS. There was no hormonal residues detected revealing free hormonal residues in the 30 samples.