Study On The Content Determination Of Pesticide Residues And Heavy Metal In Traditional Chinese Medicines

The traditional Chinese medicine is known as China's "the national essence",its treatment and health care function is accepted and approved by more and more people internationally,but our country's traditional Chinese medicine encounters great barrier in the process of moving towards the international market to participate in the competition actually. The primary problem is that the quality of our country traditional Chinese medicine is unstable,and the pesticide residue and heavy metal content exceeding the allowed figure is the factor which affects the drugs quality most.Nowadays,more and more people pay attention to the determination of the pesticide residues and the heavy metal content in the traditional Chinese medicines and establishing the limit standards.Therefore,it is important to establish methods of the pesticide residues and the harmful heavy metal's examination in the traditional Chinese medicine as soon as possible and formulate a reasonable limits standard,which is favorable to assurance the quality of the traditional Chinese medicines and its clinical safety use,and to promote the modernization of Chinese materia medica.In this study,we purchased optionally traditional Chinese medicine used in the drugs market commonly.By determining the pesticide residues and the harmful heavy metal contents in the medicines,we can get to know the situation of the pesticide residues and the harmful heavy metal's content in the traditional Chinese medicines,and it provides the scientific basis for the traditional Chinese medicine production's quality control and clinical safety use,and to provide the reference data and methods to the variety of the new Chinese pharmacopoeia standard's establishment.Wujibaifeng pills,Xiaoyao pills,Niuhangshangqing pills,Fu-Fang Danshen pills,Sanqi pills,Sanhang pills,Weikangling capsules,Guanxin Danshen capsules,Kang'erxin capsules, Dengzhanhuasu injection,Qingkailing injection and Danshen injection are Chinese patent medicines in common use,and are widely used by ethnic Chinese.In this study,an orthogonal array design was used to optimize the pesticides' optimum extraction conditions and the proposed method was effective.A GC-ECD method was developed to determinate 16 pesticide residues in 24 Chinese patent medicines simultaneously.The pesticides in the study consisted ofα-,β-,γ- andδ- hexachlorocyclohexane(α-BHC,β-BHC,γ-BHC,δ-BHC), pp'-DDE,op'- DDT,pp'-DDD,heptachlor(HEPT),quintozene(PCNB),pentachloroaniline (PCA),chlorpyrifos,parathion,parathion-methyl,malathion,fenpropathrin and permethrin. The 2,4-dinitrochlorobenzene is the internal standard.Samples was wet digested prior to AAS determination,which was advantageous in transforming the existence's all kinds of valence state of the measured metallic element in the drugs as the identical valence state,the content of As,Hg and Pb were measured by hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry(HG-AAS),and the content of Cd was measured by oxygen-acetylene flame AAS(FAAS).The results showed that all the pesticides determined in the 24 Chinese patent medicines were either below limit of detection or within the safe limits according to the European Pharmacopoeia 5.0 Pesticide residues Limits Standard except for the residue ofheptachlor in Wujibaifeng Pills(lot number:0607154)and Sanqi Tablets(lot number:061101).State Foreign Economy Ministry has developed a standard of Green Standards of Medicinal Plants and Preparations for Foreign Trade and Economy(WM/T2-2004)which made the stipulation of the content standard of heavy metal and arsenic salt in raw materials and formulation of medicinal plant resources.According to it,the residue of Hg in Wujibaifeng Pills(lot number: 0710121),Niulauangshangqing Pills(lot number:0705112)and Xiaoyao Pills(lot number: 071142)are out of the limit,the residues of As,Hg,Pb and Cd in other samples are in the limit of the standard.