Occurrence of pharmaceutical residues in drinking water: a systematic review

Abstract

Abstract In the last decades, the use of drugs, both in clinical practice and in intensive livestock farms, has increased exponentially. Following urinary and/or faecal excretion, these compounds are only partially retained in the depuration facilities, reaching fresh or marine surface waters even distant from the source of entrance. The main consequence of this phenomenon is the presence, increasingly frequently found, of traces of drugs and their metabolites in the aquatic environment including drinking water. The aim of this review is to evaluate the contamination of drinking water by pharmaceutical residues all over the world. For this purpose, a systematic review was carried out for identifying all available research reporting original data resulting by sampling campaign and analysis of “real” drinking water samples to detect pharmaceutical residues. The investigated databases were PUBMED, SCOPUS and WEB OF SCIENCE. A total of 124 studies were included in the review and 33 of them found target analytes below the limit of detection, while the remaining 91 studies reported positivity for one or more compounds, in concentrations ranging from a few to a few tens of nanograms. This finding confirms the concern about drinking water contamination on a global scale and requires close attention from health authorities, pharmaceutical industries, and scientific community. Preventive interventions for drinking water contamination should be also targeted on technological improvement of wastewater purification plants and drinking water treatment plants to raise pharmaceutical residues removal.