Sadighara 2021 - Food organotin systematic review
Sadighara and colleagues systematically reviewed organotin contamination in food matrices and performed a meta-analysis of tributyltin in seafood. The source is secondary evidence: it compiles food occurrence values from prior studies rather than generating new measurements. The review identifies seafood and edible oils as reported contaminated food categories and keeps organotin compounds such as TBT, TPhT, DBT, DOT, MBT, DPhT, and MPhT distinct from total elemental tin.
Key numbers
The search was run on 16 June 2021 in PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and Scopus, using (Organotin OR Tributyltin OR TBT) AND (Food) AND (Detection) AND (Contamination OR Pollution). The review identified 123 records, removed duplicates to 92, excluded 45 records at title/abstract screening, assessed 47 full texts, selected 9 studies after quality assessment, and included 4 studies in quantitative synthesis.
The abstract reports that TBT was investigated more often than other organotin compounds in food and that the overall average estimate for TBT in seafood was 182.33 ng/g. The results section gives the meta-analysis estimate as 182.33 ± 84.62 ng/g.
Table 1 reports food-matrix organotin values from included studies:
| Study/country | Food matrix | Organotin values and units reported by review |
|---|---|---|
| Inoue 2006, Japan | Bivalves, N = 5 | TBT 0.008 to 0.135 µg/g |
| Amodio-Cocchieri 2000, Italy | Farm fish n = 66, free-living fish n = 49 | TBT farm fish 2 (1-21) µg/Kg; TBT free-living fish 5 (1-86) µg/Kg; DBT farm fish 4 (1-28) µg/Kg; DBT free-living fish 4 (1-71) µg/Kg |
| Mattos 2017, Chile | Edible gastropod, N = 2 | TBT 602.3 ± 14.5 ngSn/g; DBT 368.7 ± 5.5 ngSn/g; MBT 203.7 ± 4.0 ngSn/g |
| Gui-bin 2000, China | Lard samples, sample size not mentioned | TMT 13.86 ± 0.31 µg/g; DMT 1700 ± 40.0 µg/g; MMT 225.06 ± 7.5 µg/g |
| Chung 2020, Hong Kong | Fish, N = 201 | mean TBT 0.32 µg/Kg, DBT 0.04 µg/Kg, DOT 0.01 µg/Kg, TPhT 23 µg/Kg |
| Chung 2020, Hong Kong | Crustaceans and molluscs, N = 109 | mean TBT 0.19 µg/Kg, DBT 0.31 µg/Kg, DOT 0.02 µg/Kg, TPhT 15 µg/Kg |
| Chen 2019, China | Commercial oysters, N = 20 for six seafood markets | maximum MBT 24.2 ± 1.3 ngSn/g, DBT 46.0 ± 0.7 ngSn/g, TBT 68.1 ± 20.1 ngSn/g, MPhT 589 ± 25.6 ngSn/g, DPhT 992 ± 18.9 ngSn/g, TPhT 747 ± 7.3 ngSn/g |
| Liu 2016, China | Edible vegetable oil, sample size of each oil = 5 | DPhT and TPhT were ND in all oil samples; maximum TBT was 28.8 ± 2.82 µg/kg in blended oil, 26.9 ± 2.15 µg/kg in sunflower seed oil, and 13.1 ± 1.24 µg/kg in soybean oil; DBT was measured in all oil samples except sesame and rape oil, with maximum DBT in blended oil 12.3 ± 1.09 µg/kg |
| Borghi 2002, Spain | Common mora, Mediterranean codling, Gunther grenadier, Risso smooth-head, spiderfish, N = 3 for each species | all organotin compounds were ND except TPT in Mediterranean codling 3.5 ± 0.8 µg/g and DBT in Gunther grenadier 4.9 ± 4.3 µg/g |
| Tsunoda 1993, Japan | Fish and shellfish, N = 5 | DBT in tuna 0.18 ± 0.25 µg/g, shrimp 0.14 ± 0.08 µg/g, oyster 0.024 ± 0.025 µg/g; TBT in tuna ND, shrimp ND, oyster 0.056 ± 0.032 µg/g; TPT in tuna ND, shrimp 0.010 ± 0.013 µg/g, oyster ND; DPT was ND in all samples |
The discussion states that the maximum level for TBT is set at 7 µg/kg in fish according to European standards, and that the review’s meta-analysis estimated TBT at 182.33 ng/g.
Methods (brief)
The review followed the PRISMA checklist. Two authors independently searched and screened the literature, extracted first author, study time, country, food type, organotin type, amount, sample size, and measurement method, and resolved disagreements with a third author. Exclusions included in vitro and animal studies, environmental samples, reviews and book chapters, non-English papers, biomonitoring, and application-only organotin papers. Only original articles measuring organotin levels in food by valid methods were eligible; studies with sample size of one were excluded. TBT values in seafood were converted to ng/g for meta-analysis, and studies with mean, standard deviation, and sample size were included in the random-model estimate.
Implications
This source is useful as an organotin literature map for seafood and edible-oil occurrence, but most numeric values should be treated as secondary summaries until the underlying primary studies are inspected. It supports routing organotin tin-species context to seafood, fish, shellfish, and cooking-oil rows. The meta-analysis estimate is not a raw product dataset and should not be treated as a hand-built HMTc pooled percentile.
Verification notes
- PDF text extracted with
pdftotext -layout; title page, PRISMA flow, Table 1, meta-analysis text, discussion, and conclusion were readable. - DOI
10.1016/j.fochx.2021.100154, raw handleMFK_main, and cite-key checks found no existing source page before creation. - Search counts, Table 1 values, and the TBT meta-analysis estimate were checked against extracted text. Units are preserved as
µg/g,µg/Kg,ngSn/g,µg/kg, andng/g; no conversion was performed. - Speciation: values are organotin species, including TBT, TPhT, DBT, DOT, MBT, DPhT, MPhT, TMT, DMT, and MMT. Frontmatter uses
Snfor tin routing following existing organotin-source convention, but these are not total tin or inorganic tin values. - Brand firewall: no sampled product brands are attached to contamination values.
- Frontmatter slugs were checked against
docs/gpt-collaboration/taxonomy-snapshot.md; no new slug was invented. A lard-specific product/ingredient slug was not available, so the lard row is documented in Key numbers without a frontmatter slug.
Page history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.
| Commit | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 9792010 | 2026-06-08 | ingest: garrity1990-mt1-tissue-specific-promoter fresh from MFK/heavy_metals_peptides |