A review of comparative analytical methods for β-lactam antibiotics and heavy metals in pharmaceutical products and human biological matrices

For a long time, humanity has suffered from infectious diseases, with bacterial infections playing a significant role in this suffering. However, with the discovery of antibiotics, an effective tool against bacterial infections has been developed, enhancing human health. On the other hand, heavy metals such as lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), mercury (Hg), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), and arsenic (As) are among the most toxic environmental pollutants impacting human health. Heavy metals readily bind to proteins, enzymes, and nucleic acids, leading to oxidative stress, mitochondrial damage, impaired membrane function, and disruption of vital biochemical processes. Therefore, both bacteria and heavy metals are essential to human health and must be managed with antibiotics and chelating agents. Beta-lactam antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections but are ineffective against viral, fungal, or parasitic infections. Extraction agents such as EDTA, DMSA, DMPS, and BAL strongly bind to toxic metals (e.g., Pb²⁺, Hg²⁺, As³⁺, Cd²⁺), forming stable, water-soluble complexes that are excreted via urine. Also, some nanotechnology methods, coupled with USA-DIL-SPE, DLLME, SPE, and SPME, were used for in vitro extraction of heavy metals from human samples. This research reviews the literature on quantifying antibiotics (mezlocillin, oxacillin, penicillin, dicloxacillin, and cefoxitin) and heavy metals, as well as the methods used to measure their concentrations in blood plasma, urine, and food. Techniques such as gas chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, spectroscopy, electrochemistry, and flow injection analysis are employed for antibiotic detection. Methods like ETAAS, F-AAS, CV-AAS, ICP-OES, and ICP-MS are commonly used to measure trace levels of toxic metals. Additionally, some β-lactam antibiotics form weak complexes with specific metal ions in vitro and in vivo due to electron-donating groups in their molecular backbones. These interactions can reduce the bioavailability of metals in solution or affect their antimicrobial activity. This review compares various analytical approaches for measuring antibiotics and heavy metals.

Keywords:

Analytical method , &beta , -Lactam antibiotics , Determination , Heavy metals , Pharmaceutical products , Human samples ,