Determination of Chloramphenicol Residues in Crustaceans: Preparation and Evaluation of a Proficiency Test in Germany

Joachim Polzer (1) , Rudolf Hackenberg , Carolin Stachel , Petra Gowik (2)

1 EU and National Reference LAboratory for Residues
2 Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety, EU and National Reference LAboratory for Residues

Chloramphenicol (CAP) is banned for use in food producing animals and is thus to be controlled on the basis of the National Residue Control Plans in the European Union. Due to the current problems with residues of CAP in shrimps, crayfish and prawns, a sensitive GC/NCI/MS method was optimised and validated using the in-house validation approach. The validation study resulted in a decision limit CCΑ of 0.07 µg/kg, a recovery of 95 % and a within-laboratory reproducibility of 9 %. The method was used for preparing a proficiency test in order to get information on the quality of residue control in Germany. The proficiency test included five samples and the results were very satisfying. The reproducibility standard deviation of these five samples ranged from 17 to 24 %, the median concentrations lay between 0.43 and 0.51 µg/kg CAP. These values are clearly below the corresponding Horwitz standard deviation of about 50%. From the study it can be concluded that there are – irrespective of the method applied - well established and properly working analytical procedures for the control of CAP around the MRPL of 0.3 µg/kg.

Mots clés: Life Sciences

Joachim Polzer, Rudolf Hackenberg, Carolin Stachel, Petra Gowik. Determination of Chloramphenicol Residues in Crustaceans: Preparation and Evaluation of a Proficiency Test in Germany. Food Additives and Contaminants, 2006, 23 (11), pp.1132-1140. ⟨10.1080/02652030600743805⟩. ⟨hal-00577480⟩