Risk characterisation from the presence of environmental contaminants and antibiotic residues in wild and farmed salmon from different FAO zones

Salmon consumption is increasing year by year. Salmon aquaculture is the fastest growing food production system in the world, and often uses feed mixed with antibiotics or other drugs. Feed can be also contaminated by environmental contaminants like persistent organic pollutants and organophosphorus pesticides that usually accumulate in fatty tissue, or emerging contaminants such as perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), that instead bioaccumulate in protein tissues. Therefore, there is the need to investigate the presence of antibiotics and environmental contaminants, with multi-class and multi-residue liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry and gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry methods to monitor a broad spectrum of residues comparing between wild and farmed salmons. The presence of residues was encountered at a concentration range of 0.35–51.52 ng g⁻¹ for antibiotics only in farmed salmon, 0.19–34.51 ng g⁻¹ for PFASs and 0.26–9.01 ng g⁻¹ for (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) PBDEs, and 0.19–5.91 ng g⁻¹ for organochlorine pesticides with higher frequencies and concentrations in farmed fish. Finally, the risk deriving from salmon intake is low, being of minor concern only for PBDE 99 and perfluorooctanoic acid.