Occurrence and risk assessment of antidepressants in Huangpu River of Shanghai, China

Abstract

Antidepressants are gaining public attention because of increasing reports of their occurrence in environment and their potential impact on ecosystems and human health. Continuous input of pharmaceuticals into rivers, through psychiatric hospital or wastewater treatment plant (WWTPs) effluent, may cause adverse effects on the aquatic ecosystems of the receiving water bodies. This work investigates the occurrence and sources of 8 antidepressants in main stream and tributaries of Huangpu River in Shanghai. The detected concentrations of the selected antidepressants ranged from low nanogram per liter to 42.9 ng L (fluoxetine) in main stream and ranged from low nanogram per liter to 33.7 ng L (fluoxetine) in tributaries. To study the effect of hospital or wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) on environment, the upstream and downstream samples were analyzed. Generally, antidepressants had greater concentrations in downstream than that in upstream of the WWTPs or hospitals. It is suggesting that WWTPs and hospitals may introduce pollution into water environment. A preliminary risk assessment was conducted: none of the eight target compounds yielded risk quotient (RQ) values more than 0.1, thus indicating that no adverse effect is expected in water environment. These results will provide background data for future antidepressants pollution control and management in Shanghai, China.

Antidepressants as emerging contaminants: Occurrence in wastewater treatment plants and surface waters in Hangzhou, China

“…Venlafaxine was detected in all samples with the highest levels in the sewage draining exit of WWTP2, where the concentration was 54.2 ng/L. The venlafaxine level is higher than Huangpu River, Dongting River, and Beiyun River in China, which range from 1 to 22.9 ng/L ( 10 , 11 , 30 ), but lower then Leca River in Portugal ( 3 ) and Guayllabamba River in Ecuador, where venlafaxine was reported in concentrations of up to 55,000 ng /L ( 31 ). The summary of concentrations of antidepressant drugs in WWTPs in other countries was listed in Table 3 .…”

An Overview of Degradation Strategies for Amitriptyline

“…With increasing prescriptions of antidepressants, an increasing concern is now rising regarding the environmental impact of antidepressants disposed of in water bodies throughout the globe [21,25,60,67]. As first-line treatment options for mental health disorders, their stability and integrity are essential for maximum efficiency; however, the therapeutic properties of antidepressants can be compromised due to various degradation pathways, including thermal degradation, hydrolysis (forced hydrolysis, extreme pH hydrolysis), oxidation, and photodegradation [69,70]. Understanding the details of degradation processes is essential for ensuring the efficacy, safety, and shelf life of these medications [35,[71][72][73].…”

“…Attention should be paid by patients not to associate AMT with alcohol or other central nervous system depressants, as this can enhance their effects [74]. Drug degradation can also raise regulatory concerns, as regulatory authorities impose strict guidelines on drug stability and quality [58,68,69,73,76]. Addressing drug degradation implications requires comprehensive stability studies during drug development and post-marketing surveillance [43,77,78].…”

Antidepressant drugs as emerging contaminants: Occurrence in urban and non-urban waters and analytical methods for their detection

“…Thus, their presence has been studied in several kinds of waters from different regions. For instance, the studies performed by Wu et al (2017) intended to analyze the occurrence of clomipramine in the Huangpu River, Shanghai, China, since it is the main destination of effluents of all the local WWTPs. Aliquots were taken in 17 different sites of the river's top torrent, and the antidepressant was detected in 4 of the collected samples at a maximal concentration of 3.2 ng L −1 .…”