Analysis, Occurrence, and Fate of Cyclophosphamide and Ifosfamide in Aqueous Environment

Abstract

Among numerous active pharmaceutical ingredients registered for chemotherapy, two of the oldest, cyclophosphamide (CP) and ifosfamide (IF), are still widely prescribed. Their administration can result in side effects such as cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, mutagenicity, and teratogenicity, which might affect aqueous biota once introduced into the environment. These compounds, which are excreted from the human body as parent compounds and metabolites, find their way into the environment via the sewerage system from hospitals and from homes, where cancer outpatients live. Concentrations of CP and IF in hospital wastewaters (WW), wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) influents and effluents, and surface waters (SW) range from ng L−1 to μg L−1. To reduce the burden of CP and IF residues in wastewater and consequently surface and drinking water (DW), the development and optimization of biological and abiotic water treatment technologies is essential, especially since both compounds are recalcitrant. Studies report complete removal of CP and IF during certain advanced oxidation processes; however, these treatments are still not available due to the high costs involved. In addition, understanding the degradation pathways of these compounds is important, since their transformation products (TPs) could exhibit higher toxicity toward aquatic ecosystems than the parent compounds. Finally, several studies describing the analysis, occurrence, and formation of CP and IF transformation products during various water treatments are discussed in this chapter.