ABSTRACT

The demand for reliable, sensitive, automated, fast, low-cost methods for residue analysis that are also applicable to a wide range of drugs and matrices is growing fast, especially in the field of food inspection. A universal analytical scheme that could simultaneously quantify all compounds of interest in the edible animal products, correctly identify the molecular structure of the analytes, and, at the same time, produce very few false-negative and -positive results to protect the consumer, producer and international trade, would provide the most desirable approach. A unified procedure would eliminate the need for using separate multiresidue methods to screen food commodities for potential drug residues, and combinations of suitable single-or multianalyte methods to identify and quantify residues of individual analytes.