en تخصصي Special Original article Original article <p style="text-align: justify"></p> <p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-family:times new roman"><strong>Background:</strong> Considering high importance of heavy metals residue from view point of food safety, this study was conducted to determine the contents of chromium (Cr), lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) in different tissues (liver, heart and muscle) of marketed chickens in Mashhad, Iran.</span></p> <p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-family:times new roman"><strong>Methods:</strong> Chicken tissues were collected from four popular brands distributed in different markets in Mashhad, followed by preparing through acidic digestion and analyzing using graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. All statistical significant differences were defined at <em>p<</em>0.05 using SPSS v. 16.0.</span></p> <p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-family:times new roman"><strong>Results:</strong> Mean concentration (&plusmn;standard deviation) of heavy metals in the liver, heart and muscle of chicken samples were 3.87 &plusmn; 3.94, 3.77 &plusmn; 2.77 and 2.27 &plusmn; 1.07 mg/kg (for Cr), 3.79 &plusmn; 3.64, 2.65 &plusmn; 1.88 and 1.65 &plusmn; 1.09 mg/kg (for Pb) as well as 0.37 &plusmn; 0.09, 0.32 &plusmn; 0.1 and 0.28 &plusmn; 0.07 mg/kg (for Cd), respectively, indicting higher heavy metals levels in liver and heart samples compared to those of muscle ones (<em>p</em><0.05).</span></p> <p style="text-align: justify"><span style="font-family:times new roman"><strong>Conclusion:</strong> The contents of some heavy metals in chicken samples are warning that highlights its public health risk in this region of Iran. Therefore, more effective monitoring procedures and surveillance programs should be applied by the authorities of regional veterinary organization.</span></p> Metals, Heavy, Chickens, Food Safety 134 138 http://jfqhc.ssu.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1-118&slc_lang=en&sid=1 A. Sadeghi No Department of Occupational Health Engineering, School of Health, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran M. Hashemi No Department of Nutrition, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran F. Jamali-Behnam fjbehnam2009@yahoo.com Yes Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Health, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran A. Zohani No Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Health, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran H. Esmaily No Department of Biostatistics, School of Health, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran A.A. Dehghan No Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran