Effect of thermal treatments on the degradation of antibiotic residues in food

The thermal stability of antibiotics commonly detected in food is reviewed. To quantify degradation, 2 major techniques have been reported: liquid chromatography-based methods and microbiological tests. As the degradation products may also display some antimicrobial activity, microbiological tests may not be considered accurate analytical methods for quantifying antibiotic residues' degradation. Degradation percentages are summarized for different antibiotics and for various media (water, oil, milk, and animal tissues). Studies presented in the literature confirm that the thermal degradation of β-lactams, quinolones, sulfonamides, and tetracyclines can be described using a first-order kinetic model. Degradation rates, k, derived for this model for liquid matrix (water) at 100 °C, followed the general trend amongst antibiotic classes: β-lactams = tetracyclines (most heat-labile) > lincomycin > amphenicols > sulfonamides > oxfendazole > levamisole (most heat-stable). Although thermal processing results in a decrease in the concentration of parent antibiotic residues, degradation by-products have not been properly characterized to date. As some of these products were shown to be hazardous, further investigation is needed to determine their impact on food safety and human health. It is therefore currently difficult to definitively conclude whether or not antibiotic degradation during food processing is necessarily beneficial in terms of food safety.