Polychlorinated biphenyls and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and furans in imported canned fish in Nigeria and risk assessment

ABSTRACT

Concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs) were measured in imported canned fish such as mackerel, sardine and tuna to evaluate the risk relating to human consumption of these products. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) was used to evaluate the concentrations of PCBs and PCDD/Fs in the samples. The $\sum$28 PCB concentrations in the canned mackerel, tuna and sardine ranged from 0.33 to 9.48 ng g ⁻¹, <LOQ to 8.8 ng g⁻¹ and <LOQ to 15.1 ng g⁻¹, respectively, while the $\sum$14 PCDD/Fs concentrations varied from 0.06 to 4.70 ng g⁻¹ for mackerel, 0.72 to 9.43 ng g⁻¹ for tuna and not detected to 22.0 ng g ⁻¹ for sardines. Health risk analysis suggests that ingestion of these samples could lead to adverse non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks over a lifetime.

KEYWORDS:

• PCBs
• PCDD/Fs
• canned fish
• toxic equivalency (TEQ)
• daily intake
• carcinogenic risk
• food analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/19393210.2022.2120543.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.