Risk assessment for ecotoxicity of pharmaceuticals an emerging issue

Supratik Kar, Kunal Roy

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

51 Scopus citations

Abstract

Introduction: Existence of a large amount of pharmaceuticals and their active metabolites in the environment has recently been considered as one of the most serious concerns in environmental sciences. Large diversity of pharmaceuticals has been found in the environmental domain in considerable amounts that are not only destructive to environment but also fatal for human and animal fraternity. Areas covered: There is a considerable lack of knowledge about the environmental fate and quantification of a large number of pharmaceuticals. This communication aims to review the literature information regarding occurrence of pharmaceuticals and their metabolites in the environment, their persistence, environmental fate and toxicity as well as application of theoretical, non-experimental, non-animal, alternative and, in particular, in silico methods to provide information about the basic physicochemical and fate properties of pharmaceuticals to the environment. The reader will gain an overview of risk assessment strategies for ecotoxicity of pharmaceuticals and advances in application of quantitative structuretoxicity relationship (QSTR) in this field. Expert opinion: This review justifies the need to develop more QSTR models for prediction of ecotoxicity of pharmaceuticals in order to reduce time and cost involvement in such exercise.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)235-274
Number of pages40
JournalExpert Opinion on Drug Safety
Volume11
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2012

Keywords

  • Ecotoxicity
  • in silico tools
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • QSTR

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