Determination of Cefepime Residues in Different Rabbit Tissues using High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

S everal broad spectrum antibiotics were widely used for treatment and prophylaxsis of some dangerous bacterial infection in rabbits (El-Nawawy et al., 2006). Cefepime is one of fourth-generation parenteral cephalosporin antibiotic that is used for treatment of pneumonia, febrile neutropenia, urinary tract infections. Cefepime monotherapy gives both an excellent microbiological clearance and a good clinical response (El-Dars et al., 2019). Antimicrobial drug residues are detected by chemical, biological and immunological methods. The use of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is an effective, accurate, rapid and sensitive technique for the analysis of cefepime residues in the tissues (Orti et al., 2000). Intensive uncontrolled use of antimicrobials drugs in the rabbit industry especially if the withdrawal times are neglected leads to harmful effects on human health (Tajick and Shohreh, 2006). The possible human hazards health problems related to antibiotic residues have been report-research Article Abstract | Drug Residues in meat have serious effects on human health (e.g., increase antimicrobial resistance, carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, and hypersensitivity) which urge the control of veterinary drug residues to ensure consumers' health. Thus, this work was designed to determine cefepime residues quantitatively in different tissues of the rabbits (liver, kidneys and muscles) and to determine the withdrawal time of cefepime following intra-muscular (I/M) dosing of the drug using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Twenty four healthy male rabbit (growing white New Zealand) were used and randomly allocated into two equal groups, 12 rabbits/each; group 1 (negative control) was I/M injected with sterile normal saline and group 2 was I/M injected with cefepime hydrochloride (75 mg/kg BW) once daily for 5 successive days. Rabbits were sacrificed on 1 st , 3 rd , 7 th and 14 th day post antibiotic injection and liver, kidney and breast muscles samples were collected for detection of residue by HPLC. Results showed that days of experiment and tissue type has an effect on cefepime residual level as there is highly significant interaction (p =0.0001). The highest cefepime residual level was detected in kidney followed by liver while the lowest level was recorded in muscle samples. Cefepime remained within the detectable limit in the breast muscle (on the 3 rd day) and in the kidney and liver tissues (on the 7 th day) following the last I/M injection of the drug. While on the 14 th day after last dose, the cefepime residues were disappear in all tested tissues. Cefepime administration caused non-marked changes of tested biochemical indices (liver, and kidney function tests) of rabbit then reached to safe levels during the withdrawal period at other time points. Therefore, it is recommended to pay attention to the proper withdrawal time (14 day) before slaughtering of cefepime-treated rabbits to make sure that rabbits tissues are free from cefepime residues and become safe for consumers.