Antibiotic internal exposure levels of School Children in East China based on biomonitoring Study

摘要

To explore the antibiotic internal exposure levels of Chinese children, a biomonitoring method was developed to detect total urinary concentrations (free and conjugated) of 18 representative antibiotics (5 macrolides, 2 6-lactams, 3 tetracyclines, 4 quinolones, and 4 sulfonamides) based on ultraperformance liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry. By usage of this proposed method, the urinary samples collected from 1064 school students, which were recruited from 3 areas in East China area in 2013, were measured. The detection frequencies of all 18 antibiotics ranged from 0.4% to 19.6%, and 58.3% of the whole urine samples were found with target antibiotics. Of them, 47.8% of the urine samples had a sum of mass concentration of all antibiotics between 0.1 (minimum) and 20.0 ng/mL, and 8 antibiotics had their concentrations of above 1000 ng/mL in some urine samples. At least one antibiotic was found in more than 50% of the whole urine samples and the proportion reached at 74.4% in one study area. Three veterinary antibiotics, 4 human antibiotics, and 11 human/veterinary antibiotics were detected overall in 6.3, 19.9, and 49.4% of urine samples, respectively. The results suggested that Chinese school children were extensively exposured to antibiotics and contaminated food or environment might be potential exposure sources.