RT Journal Article
T1 Wastewater-based epidemiology to assess pharmaceutical consumption. Spanish perspective
A1 Fontanals Torroja, Núria
A1 Marcé Recasens, Rosa Maria
A1 Montes Goyanes, Rosa
A1 Rodil Rodríguez, María del Rosario
A1 González Mariño, Iria
A1 Valcárcel, Yolanda
A1 Rodríguez Mozaz, Sara
A1 Borrull Ballarín, Francesc
A1 Quintana Álvarez, José Benito
A1 Pocurull, Eva
K1 Pharmaceuticals
K1 Influent wastewater
K1 Wastewater-based epidemiology
K1 Dispensed pharmaceutical data
K1 Consumption
AB Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a well-established approach that can provide objective and real-time data on the consumption of substances such as pharmaceuticals. However, most of the studies reported so far compares consumption data obtained using WBE with those derived from prescription data from public health systems, which is often incomplete and might represent a source of uncertainty.This study aims to compare the measured pharmaceutical consumption back calculated with the WBE approach with consumption derived from dispensed pharmaceuticals in two regions of Spain, managed by two different Health Systems. To do so, a group of 17 pharmaceuticals, including the most representative ones of every therapeutic family, were monitored in influent wastewater (IWW) samples collected over a week campaign in spring 2022 at four different wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Spain: two WWTPs in Madrid city (center of Spain) and two WWTPs in Catalonia (Northeast of Spain).Population-normalized daily loads (PNDL) revealed that the patterns of pharmaceutical occurrence in the different WWTPs are very similar, being acetaminophen, 4-acetamidoantipyrine and valsartan the pharmaceuticals with the highest PNDL values: 17162 ± 1457 mg day−1 1000 inh−1 for acetaminophen, 2365 ± 696 and 2429 ± 263 mg day−1 1000 inh−1 for 4-acetamidoantipyrine, 2006 ± 541 and 2041 ± 352 mg day−1 1000 inh−1 for valsartan.Pharmaceutical PNLDs were then transformed into measured pharmaceutical consumption (MC) and compared with dispensed consumption (DC) data obtained from the pharmacies in the catchment area where the WWTPs are located. A ratio MC/DC within 0.8 to 1.2 was obtained for 11 out of the 17 studied pharmaceuticals. Highlighting a match in all the cardiovascular system pharmaceuticals, with the exception of losartan (1.29–1.39 ratio) and valsartan (1.35–1.43) in all WWTPs. In summary, the degree of correlation between MC/DC is higher than those previously reported comparing with the prescribed pharmaceutical consumption.
PB Elsevier
YR 2024
FD 2024-09-13
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/34787
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/34787
LA eng
NO Fontanals et al. Wastewater-based epidemiology to assess pharmaceutical consumption. Spanish perspective. Science of the Total Environment 953 (2024) 176108.
NO This work has been supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and the Agencia Estatal de Investigación, MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, for granting the projects CTM2016-81935-REDT, PID2020-114587GB-I00 and PID2020-117686RB-C32 for their financial support. Talented Researcher Support Programme: Economy and Knowledge Department of the Catalan Government through the Consolidated Research Group (ICRA-ENV - 2021 SGR 01282) is also acknowledged. Authors from the University of Santiago de Compostela further acknowledge funding through Consellería de Cultura de Galicia, Educación e Universidades - Xunta de Galicia (ED481A-2020/258 & ED431C 2021/06) and Instituto de Salud Carlos III-Next Generation EU/PRTR (RD21/0009/0012  – RIAPAd Network).
DS Minerva
RD 25 abr 2026