Cytostatic drugs and metabolites in municipal and hospital wastewaters in Spain: Filtration, occurrence, and environmental risk

Concerns about cytostatic anticancer drugs in the environment are increasing, mainly due to the lack of knowledge about the fate and impact of these cytotoxic compounds in the water cycle. In this context, the present work investigated the occurrence of 13 cytostatics and 4 metabolites in wastewater samples from various wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and from a large hospital from Spain. The target compounds belong to five different classes according to the Anatomical Therapeutic Classification (ATC), namely, alkylating agents, antimetabolites, plant alkaloids and other natural products, cytotoxic antibiotics and related substances, and other antineoplastic agents. Some of them have been classified as carcinogens in humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). These compounds were determined by an automated on line solid-phase extraction-liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (SPE-LC-MS/MS) method. Results showed the presence of methotrexate (MET), ifosfamide (IF), cyclophosphamide (CP), irinotecan (IRI), doxorubicin (DOX), capecitabine (CAP), tamoxifen (TAM) and the metabolites endoxifen (OH-D-TAM), hydroxytamoxifen (OH-TAM) and hydroxypaclitaxel (OH-PAC) at levels ranging from 2 ng L-1 (for MET) to 180 ng L-1 (for TAM). Some of these compounds were found to be efficiently removed after wastewater treatment, e.g. MET, DOX and IRI, whereas other compounds, such as TAM, CP and IF remained largely unaltered. The behaviour of the target compounds during the common filtration step of the water samples was also investigated with the finding that some compounds are strongly adsorbed to nylon filters, while cellulose acetate appears as the best choice for the filter material. The aquatic environmental risk associated to the detected compounds was also assessed. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first report of the presence of the metabolites OH-D-TAM and OH-TAM in the water cycle. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.