Concentrations of Fluoroquinolones in Livestock and Poultry: A Systematic Review

Fluoroquinolones are antimicrobial drugs that are widely used in veterinary medicine to treat bacterial infections in livestock and poultry. However, their use raises concerns regarding antibiotic residues in food products which poses a threat to both human and animal health. A systematic review following the PRISMA guidelines was conducted to analyze the concentration of fluoroquinolones in meat, milk, pork, poultry, and eggs. The search was limited to articles published in English, between 2000-2022. As a result, a total of 39 eligible studies were retrieved from PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus. Data from these studies was extracted and summarized in an Excel sheet and analyzed using Graph Pad Prism software. Fifty-four percent described data for Asia while others for Africa (25.6%), Europe (17.9%), and South America (2.6 %). Varying mean concentrations of the detected fluoroquinolones were ranging from 0.1 - 1750 μg/kg in beef, 0.1 – 184 μg/kg in pork, 5.3 - 705.9 μg/L in milk, 0.1 - 4349.1 μg/kg in poultry, and 0.3 - 107.1 μg/kg in eggs. The prevalence of the detected fluoroquinolones calculated varied within the different food types. The fluoroquinolones detected with the highest prevalence in beef, pork, milk, poultry meat and eggs were ciprofloxacin (63.6%), enrofloxacin (38.9%), difloxacin (90.1%), enrofloxacin (100%), and enrofloxacin (9.1%), respectively. This review provided valuable insights into the global distribution of fluoroquinolones in food animals, highlighting the need for regulation of these antimicrobials. Research pertaining to the concentration of these veterinary drugs in animal-derived foods has to be intensified to get the estimates of residues in different food matrices.