A preliminary study on the occurrence of cytostatic drugs in hospital effluents in Beijing, China.

Cytostatic drugs are used in cancer therapy. They can enter hospital wastewater due to excretion by patients undergoing chemotherapy. Little attention has been paid to these drugs in China even though their usage is high. The effluents of 21 hospitals of different size in Beijing, China, were investigated on 1-7 different days. Nine cytostatic compounds (methotrexate, azathioprine, doxorubicin, doxorubicinol, vincristine, ifosfamide, cyclophosphamide, etoposide, and procarbazine) were tested. Of the 65 effluent samples analyzed, the median concentrations for methotrexate, azathioprine, ifosfamide, cyclophosphamide and etoposide were 17, 15, 151, 100 and 42 ng/L, respectively. Doxorubicin, doxorubicinol, vincristine and procarbazine were not detected in this study. These results suggested that the hospital effluents are an important source of certain cytostatic drugs in aqueous environment.