Significance of Metabolites in the Environmental Risk Assessment of Pharmaceuticals Consumed by Human
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the significance of metabolites to the ERA of human pharmaceuticals. The predicted exposure concentrations (PECs) in surface water were estimated for a total of 24 selected active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and their metabolites using a life cycle based emission estimation model combined with a multimedia fate model with Monte-Carlo calculations. With the eco-toxicity data, the hazard quotients (HQs) of the metabolites were compared with those of individual parents alone. The results showed that PEC or toxicity or both of the metabolites was predicted to be higher than that of their parent APIs, which resulted in a total of 18 metabolites (from 12 parents) that have greater HQs than their parents. This result clearly demonstrated that some metabolites may potentially pose greater risk than their parent APIs in the water environment. Therefore, significance of metabolites should be carefully evaluated for monitoring strategy, priority setting, and scoping of the environmental risk assessment of APIs. The method used in the present work may serve as a pragmatic approach for the purpose of preliminary screening or priority setting of environmental risk posed by both APIs and their metabolites.
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Hof, M. A. J., de Haan, H., Stepanovic, S., Bakker, S. J. L., Hak, E., Hopfgartner, G., Klont, F., & Investigators, T. (2025) · Metabolites · doi:10.3390/metabo15070473 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“An important aspect of current environmental drug monitoring practices and the assessment of drugs’ ecotoxicological hazard potential is the recognition that many drugs are partially excreted as metabolites rather than in their originally administered form [14–18].”
- Authors
- Han, E. J., & Lee, D. S.
- Affiliations
- Seoul National University (KR)
- Corresponding author
- Lee, Dong Soo
- ORCID
- Lee, Dong Soo
- Venue
- Science of The Total Environment
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-08
- Volume
- 592
- Pages
- 600-607
- ISSN
- 0048-9697 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2595300508
- Cited by
- 57
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 4
- FWCI
- 1.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Science of The Total Environment (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- KEITI
- Korea Ministry of Environment (2014001370001)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Chemistry › Environmental Chemistry and Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Environmental Toxicology and Ecotoxicology
- Keywords
- drug metabolites, active pharmaceutical ingredients, environmental risk assessment, hazard quotient, surface water contamination, multimedia fate modeling, Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis, ecotoxicity, priority setting, water pollution monitoring
- MeSH terms
- Drug Residues, Pharmaceutical Preparations, Environmental Monitoring, Water Pollutants, Chemical, Risk Assessment, Ecotoxicology
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