This study reports the results of aflatoxins B/G monitoring in food of vegetal origin, imported in Southern Italy from extra-European Union countries. From 2017 to 2020, we analyzed 1675 samples using an accredited HPLC method with fluorescence detection. We found out 295 samples (17.6%) were contaminated by aflatoxin B1, 204 by aflatoxins B/G (12.2%), while 75 (4.5%) resulted non-compliant to maximum limits set by the European Union law. Most of the batches tested were unprocessed food; the distribution of contamination levels, incidence of non-compliant samples, inference for different kinds of food are reported. The study focuses on the food more susceptible to contamination by aflatoxins; nuts are the food more controlled, showing the higher number of non-compliant samples. Our study confirms that pistachio nuts, hazelnuts and almonds are the major sources of exposure for consumers. Still, other products, such as chili pepper and Brazil nuts, need to get more information about their contamination levels. The study’s findings are discussed in the perspective of the last opinion by EFSA about chronic exposure to aflatoxins. A case study to evaluate not compliance of a composed food to the European Union law is reported.

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Serum levels of various immunochémical markers of clinical interest, as interleukin-6 (IL-6), C-reactive protein (CRP) and β₂-microglobulin (β₂M), were measured in sera from 98 subjects affected with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS; 80% of which bearing cancer too) and from 39 patients with multiple myeloma (MM). In addition, the ratio between serum IgG/IgA amounts (GAR) was also calculated in monoclonal gammopathies of IgG type. Consistent with our previous investigations, we found that tumor presence significantly influenced the serum levels of the various markers (except GAR) in MGUS patients; in fact, only when comparing MGUS without tumor and MM patients, was a clear difference observed for all markers considered. The data presented discourage the use of IL-6, CRP and β₂M as discriminant indices between MGUS and MM patients, unless a careful selection of MGUS subjects is performed. Further investigations on these potential markers are therefore needed for a more rational clinical application.

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