Effects of Pharmaceuticals on Aquatic Invertebrates. Part I. The Antiepileptic Drug Carbamazepine

Abstract

The effects of the antiepileptic drug carbamazepine (CBZ) were studied in three freshwater invertebrate species representing different taxonomic groups, life histories, and habitats in aquatic ecosystems. The oligochaete Lumbriculus variegatus was exposed by way of CBZ-spiked sediments at nominal concentrations between 0.625 and 10 mg/kg dry weight (dw) for 28 days. At the end of the test, reproduction and biomass were monitored as end points. The non-biting midge Chironomus riparius was exposed to CBZ in a series of tests at nominal CBZ concentrations in sediment ranging from 0.16 to 100 mg/kg dw at 20 degrees C and 23 degrees C. Emergence and gender ratio were monitored at the end of the test. The freshwater snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum as the third test species was used in a chronic reproduction test for 28 days at aqueous CBZ concentrations from 0.4 to 250 mg/L. Whereas for the oligochaete and the snail no effects were observed, C. riparius exhibited a significant and concentration-dependent decrease of emergence in all test series. No observed effect concentrations and 10% effect concentrations were in the range of 33 to 140 and 70 to 210 microg/kg dw, respectively, based on measured CBZ concentrations in sediments. These low values indicate that CBZ may pose a potential threat for the survival of C. riparius and probably also for other aquatic insect populations in the field.

Microwave‐assisted micellar extraction coupled with solid‐phase extraction for preconcentration of pharmaceuticals in molluscs prior to determination by HPLC

“…These results are reported in Table 3. The results are in agreement with those obtained by other authors for this type of mussel samples (Oetken et al, 2005;Gagné et al, 2006).…”

Chronic toxicity of the antiepileptic carbamazepine on the clam Ruditapes philippinarum

“…Other authors found a similar pattern, where the chronic tests presented a higher toxicity than the acute tests (e.g. Oetken et al, 2005;Zhang et al, 2012). Moreover, chronic studies performed with environmental concentrations have shown that CBZ can affect multiple oxidative and biochemical pathways in bivalves, with significant deleterious effects (Martin-Diaz et al, 2009;Contardo-Jara et al, 2011;Chen et al, 2014).…”

Ecotoxicological aspects related to the presence of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment

“…Another important issue concerning carbamazepine is that it can adsorb to sediments, in this way threat-ening aquatic organisms which feed on organic matter. Oetken et al [167] showed that exposure of the invertebrate Chironomus ripar-ius to this pharmaceutical through sediments caused a blockade of pupation and decreased emergence with EC50 values of 160 and 280 µg kg −1 of dry weight, respectively. Carbamazepine is ubiq-uitously present in the environment, having an extremely low removal rate in STPs (7%) [54] and consequently being detected in rivers [16,20,21,54,92] at concentrations up to 595 ng L −1 [92] (Table 5).…”