Abstract
Sulfamethazine has been widely used in swine for prevention or treatment of infections. Recently, the safety of the drug to consumers has been questioned because of carcinogenic effects. To prevent unwanted drug residues entering the human food chain, both government authorities and industries have established extensive control measures. The demands for reliable, simple, sensitive, rapid and low-cost methods for residue analysis of foods are increasing nowadays. In this study, we established a rapid prediction test for the detection of cattle with violative tissue residues of sulfamethazine. The recommended therapeutic dose of sulfamethazine (withdrawal time, 15 days) was administered to each of 10 cattle. Blood was sampled before drug administration and during the withdrawal period. The concentration of sulfamethazine in plasma, determined by a semi-quantitative ELISA, was compared to that of an internal standard (10 ppb). The absorbance ratio of internal standard to sample (B/Bs) was employed as an index to determine whether drug residues in cattle tissues were negative or positive. That is, a B/Bs ratio less than 1 was considered residue positive and if larger than 1 was considered negative. All 10 plasma samples from non-treated cattle showed negative to sulfamethazine. Sulfamethazine was detected in plasmas of treated cattle until Day 7 of withdrawal period. The present study showed that the semi-quantitative ELISA could be easily adapted in predicting residues of sulfamethazine in live cattle.