Recent advances in assessing xenobiotics migrating from packaging material - A review

Migration of potentially toxic xenobiotics and their transformation products from packaging materials needs continuous monitoring efforts. This task requires utilizing both instrumental and biological methods as more and more novel materials reach market every year to serve consumers and reduce production costs. Unfortunately, these materials very often sneak past our legal regulations on their composition and emission of contaminants due to contact with the materials or products stored. For these reasons, more and more novel, holistic and multi-tier approaches must be elaborated to uncompromisingly assure safety of these materials to living creatures. In the work presented, a review of methods enabling performing studies on extraction, leaching, qualitative and quantitative determination of xenobiotics and their combined effect on certain biological endpoints is given. Additionally, a basic approach guiding end-users and scientists to elaborate such studies is presented in the form of a basic scheme, and advantages and disadvantages of these methods are summarized.