Polychlorinated biphenyls in canned sardines in Nigeria and health risk assessment

ABSTRACT

The concentrations and potential human health risks through dietary ingestion of PCBs in canned sardines collected from the Nigerian market were determined. The results shows that the total PCBs concentrations varied from <LOD to 668 ng g⁻¹. The composition of PCBs in the canned sardines followed the order: Penta-PCBs > Hexa-PCBs > Tetra-PCBs > Di-PCB > Deca-PCB > Tri-PCBs > Hepta-PCBs > Octa-PCB. The estimated daily intake for total PCBs ranged from <LOD to 926 ng kg⁻¹ bw day⁻¹ and < LOD to 232 ng kg⁻¹ bw day⁻¹ for child and adult exposures respectively. The TEQs values of the dl-PCBs indicated that these canned sardines are unsafe for consumption. The hazard index and total cancer risk values in 53% of the canned sardines were greater than 1 and 1 × 10⁻⁶ respectively indicating that there are adverse non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks associated with human consumption of these canned sardines.

KEYWORDS:

• Canned sardines
• PCBs
• hazard index
• total cancer risk
• daily intake
• TEQ

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Baranaye Ololo, Daberechi Arugo and Kingsley Godson for their assistance in sample collection.