Ecotoxicological Effects of the Drug Paracetamol: A Critical Review of Past Ecotoxicity Assessments and Future Perspecti
Paracetamol (also designated as acetaminophen) has been systematically reported to occur in the aquatic environment, giving rise to serious concerns related to its ecotoxicological profile, final environmental fate, and potential biological interactions.
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Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 Environmental Presence and Fate of Paracetamol 1.2 Ecotoxicological Effects Caused by Paracetamol 1.3 Paracetamol Toxicity in Plants 1.4 Toxic Effects of Paracetamol on Polychaetes and Mollusks 1.5 Toxic Effects of Paracetamol on Crustaceans 1.6 Toxic Effects of Paracetamol on Fish 2 Conclusions References
Abstract Paracetamol (also designated as acetaminophen) has been systematically reported to occur in the aquatic environment, giving rise to serious concerns related to its ecotoxicological profile, final environmental fate, and potential biological interactions. In fact, the existing data concerning the toxicology of such drug shows its involvement in multiple adverse effects at several organs and tissues, a reality that also occurs in aquatic organisms of varied types, trophic levels, and habitats. From such data, it is possible to ascertain about the putative environmental risk posed by such drug, namely, by exerting deleterious irreversible effects in non-target organisms at low levels of exposure. The present article intends to critically present a comprehensive series of studies addressing the ecotoxicity of paracetamol, evidencing its deleterious nature, the extent of the problem, and alternative methods to determine the potential threat that it may constitute.
B. Nunes (*) Departamento de Biologia, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal Centro de Estudos do Ambiente e do Mar (CESAM), Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. M. Gómez-Oliván (ed.), Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs in Water: Emerging Contaminants and Ecological Impact, Hdb Env Chem, https://doi.org/10.1007/698_2020_546
B. Nunes
Keywords Biomarkers, Drugs, Multispecies assessment, Oxidative stress, Painkillers
1 Introduction Paracetamol is one of the most valued therapeutic responses in modern medicine, given its analgesic properties, and its massive use as a painkiller started during the 1960s of the twentieth century [1]. Analgesics are a therapeutic class in which use has been rising for the last decades, as shown by Diener et al. [2], and paracetamol is among the most used pharmaceutical preparations used to treat and reduce pain of different natures and origins. Retrospective data show that, among the most common drugs consumed in developed countries, paracetamol is frequently among the top five [3]. Consequently, paracetamol has been recently classified as a priority compound, whose toxicity characterization is urgently required [4]. In addition, paracetamol is often formulated in over-the-counter pharmaceutical preparations, a factor that also contributes for its frequent use [5]. Considering its long history of use, versatility, safety, and efficacy in common therapeutics, paracetamol is used by millions of human patients, being of fundamental importance in pediatrics also [6]. Despite this massive use, and quite paradoxically, paracetamol is frequently associated both to unintentional poisoning and also to suicide among humans, due to it
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