Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) of drugs: an overview

摘要

Residues of pharmaceutical active principles (APIs) and their potential toxic effects have been recognized recently as one of the emerging concerns in the scientific community as well as and, more and more, in the general public. The increasing attention on pharmaceuticals as potential pollutants is due to the fact that they can have similar physico-chemical behavior than other xenobiotics which are persistent and/ or can produce adverse effects in environmental species. Additionally, we have to consider that APIs are continuously introduced into the environment; this condition may lead to a huge persistence in some cases.