Endocrine Disrupting Compounds – Problems and Challenges

In this chapter, information about some of the estrogenic compounds and their environmental fate and biological influence can be found. Special attention is paid to the review of the analytical approaches used at the stages of detection and determi‐ nation of Endocrine Disrupting Compounds (EDCs) in the environmental samples. Also, a brief characterization of both cellular and non-cellular bioassays is presented. The discovery of micropollutants occurring in the environment resulted in new methodologies being put into the analytical practice. These methodologies are developed in two different directions. The first is based on methodological solutions designed to detect, identify, and determine xenobiotics that occur in various environ‐ mental samples. For this purpose, instrumental methods such as gas and liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry detection are usually used. The second approach is to put into the analytical practice the new bioanalytical methodologies. These methodologies allow the estimation of the sample endocrine potential, but they do not provide the information about which of the sample ingredient is responsible for causing the toxic effect. These results can be the basis for estimating the endocrine potential of the environment exhibited by certain species. Moreover, bioanalytical techniques may be supplementary to the techniques of quantitative and qualitative determination of EDCs.