Skip to main content
Download PDF

Volume 7 Supplement 2

13th Scientific Symposium of the Austrian Pharmacological Society (APHAR). Joint Meeting with the Austrian Society of Toxicology (ASTOX) and the Hungarian Society for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology (MFT)

Hospital waste water: health risk for human and environment by cytostatic drug emissions? Part II: Biological monitoring (genotoxicity assays) and risk assessment

BMC Pharmacology volume 7, Article number: A70 (2007) Cite this article

Biological monitoring

Assays: (a) Bacterial mutagenicity (TA98, TA100), (b) single cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE; endpoint: DNA migration) with primary rat hepatocytes. Waste water samples: effluent of (a) the total hospital (TH), (b) the oncological ward (OW), collected before dilution in the Vienna sewer system.

Results

All samples negative in bacterial assays, acute bacteriocidal/bacteriostatic effects of highest water volumes tested. SCGE assays: increase but no significant differences between DNA migration caused by TH and OW samples. The genotoxic activities of the waters could be reduced significantly (25–50%) by waste water treatment.

Risk assessment

according to EU Guidelines aimed at elucidating priorities and urgencies for risk management. Integrating chemical and biological monitoring data, genotoxic profile and (sparse) data on aquatic toxicity revealed that the endangerment of humans, aquatic and terrestrial environment by cytostatic drugs released via hospital waste water could be preliminary classified as small. A reduction of the avoidable environmental load – in line with EU document 2000/60/EC – could be achieved by advanced waste water treatment at the source as applied within the framework of this project.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Cancer Research, Clinics of Internal Medicine I, Medical University of Vienna, Austria

    Franziska Ferk, Susanne N Mahnik, Robert M Mader, Petra Krenn, Siegfried Knasmüller & Wilfried Bursch

  2. Umweltbundesamt, Vienna, Austria

    Maria Uhl

  3. BOKU University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria

    Maria Fuerhacker, Susanne N Mahnik, Katharina Lenz, Norbert Weissenbacher, Stephan Hann & Gunda Koellensperger

Authors
  1. Franziska Ferk
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Maria Uhl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Maria Fuerhacker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Susanne N Mahnik
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Katharina Lenz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Norbert Weissenbacher
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Robert M Mader
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Petra Krenn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Stephan Hann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Gunda Koellensperger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Siegfried Knasmüller
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  12. Wilfried Bursch
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wilfried Bursch.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ferk, F., Uhl, M., Fuerhacker, M. et al. Hospital waste water: health risk for human and environment by cytostatic drug emissions? Part II: Biological monitoring (genotoxicity assays) and risk assessment. BMC Pharmacol 7 (Suppl 2), A70 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2210-7-S2-A70

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2210-7-S2-A70

Keywords

  • Waste Water
  • Biological Monitoring
  • Cytostatic Drug
  • Waste Water Treatment
  • Waste Water Sample

BMC Pharmacology

ISSN: 1471-2210