Comparison of Prioritisation Schemes for Human Pharmaceuticals in the Aquatic Environment

Sarah Letsinger,Paul Kay

doi:10.1007/s11356-018-3834-9

Abstract

Only a small proportion of pharmaceuticals available for commercial use have been monitored in the aquatic environment, and even less is known about the effects on organisms. With thousands of pharmaceuticals in use, it is not feasible to monitor or assess the effects of all of these compounds. Prioritisation schemes allow the ranking of pharmaceuticals based on their potential as environmental contaminants, allowing resources to be appropriately used on those which are most likely to enter the environment and cause greatest harm. Many different types of prioritisation schemes exist in the literature and those utilising predicted environmental concentrations (PECs), the fish plasma model (FPM), critical environmental concentrations (CECs) and acute ecotoxicological data were assessed in the current study using the 50 most prescribed drugs in the UK. PECs were found to be overestimates of mean measured environmental concentrations but mainly underestimations of maximum concentrations. Acute ecological data identified different compounds of concern to the other effects assessments although the FPM and CECs methods were more conservative. These schemes highlighted antidepressants, lipid regulators, antibiotics, antihypertensive compounds and ibuprofen as priority compounds for further study and regulation.

Highlights

Concern over the presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment and the subsequent development of environmental risk assessments (ERAs) for these compounds began in the 1990s (Küster and Adler 2014)
PECA was calculated using (Eq 1), where A is the amount of pharmaceuticals dispensed, E is the fraction of the compound excreted unchanged, V is the volume of waste water per capita per day, P is the population of England in 2014, and D is the dilution of waste water
Removal rates were obtained from peer-reviewed literature and where multiple removal rates were published for the same compound, the lowest was chosen in order to create a more conservative estimate

Summary

Introduction

Concern over the presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment and the subsequent development of environmental risk assessments (ERAs) for these compounds began in the 1990s (Küster and Adler 2014). The use of a prioritisation scheme can help address this by identifying a smaller set of compounds which have the potential to enter the environment and pose a biological risk. This can allow researchers and policy makers to direct resources towards further study; they can help decide which compounds need to be monitored in the environment and which require more information on their fate and biological effects (Mansour et al 2016)

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