AVALIAÇÃO DE CARVÃO ATIVADO PRODUZIDO A PARTIR DO CAROÇO DE AÇAÍ COMO ADSORVENTE APLICADO À REMOÇÃO DE IBUPROFENO

O avanço farmacêutico, em conjunto com o aumento populacional ocorrido nas últimas décadas, promoveu um progressivo aumento na produção e consumo de medicamentos disponíveis para o tratamento e prevenção de doenças. Contudo, diversos medicamentos, por não serem completamente metabolizados pelo organismo, são excretados no meio ambiente gerando acúmulo dessas substâncias em corpos d’água. Assim, o desenvolvimento de materiais e métodos capazes de remover tais poluentes no tratamento de água de abastecimento se tornou cada vez mais necessário. Nesse contexto, esse trabalho visou ao desenvolvimento de carvões ativados (CA) provenientes de caroço de açaí e à avaliação de seu uso como adsorventes para a remoção do fármaco ibuprofeno. Os CAs produzidos e um carvão ativado comercial foram caracterizados por meio de análises de Infravermelho por Transformada de Fourier, Termogravimetria, Microscopia Eletrônica de Varredura e Espectroscopia por Energia Dispersiva. Nos estudos de adsorção empregando solução de ibuprofeno em água destilada, observou-se que o carvão ativado produzido a partir do caroço de açaí inteiro e o carvão ativado comercial foram capazes de remover o ibuprofeno com eficiências próximas a 10 % e 16%, respectivamente. Embora indiquem a necessidade de estudos posteriores, os presentes resultados mostram o potencial do emprego de resíduos orgânicos para síntese de adsorventes para remoção de fármacos em água

The impact of surgical delay on resectability of colorectal cancer: An international prospective cohort study

AIM: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to explore the impact of surgical delays on cancer resectability. This study aimed to compare resectability for colorectal cancer patients undergoing delayed versus non-delayed surgery. METHODS: This was an international prospective cohort study of consecutive colorectal cancer patients with a decision for curative surgery (January-April 2020). Surgical delay was defined as an operation taking place more than 4 weeks after treatment decision, in a patient who did not receive neoadjuvant therapy. A subgroup analysis explored the effects of delay in elective patients only. The impact of longer delays was explored in a sensitivity analysis. The primary outcome was complete resection, defined as curative resection with an R0 margin. RESULTS: Overall, 5453 patients from 304 hospitals in 47 countries were included, of whom 6.6% (358/5453) did not receive their planned operation. Of the 4304 operated patients without neoadjuvant therapy, 40.5% (1744/4304) were delayed beyond 4 weeks. Delayed patients were more likely to be older, men, more comorbid, have higher body mass index and have rectal cancer and early stage disease. Delayed patients had higher unadjusted rates of complete resection (93.7% vs. 91.9%, P = 0.032) and lower rates of emergency surgery (4.5% vs. 22.5%, P < 0.001). After adjustment, delay was not associated with a lower rate of complete resection (OR 1.18, 95% CI 0.90-1.55, P = 0.224), which was consistent in elective patients only (OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.69-1.27, P = 0.672). Longer delays were not associated with poorer outcomes. CONCLUSION: One in 15 colorectal cancer patients did not receive their planned operation during the first wave of COVID-19. Surgical delay did not appear to compromise resectability, raising the hypothesis that any reduction in long-term survival attributable to delays is likely to be due to micro-metastatic disease

Water Reuse through Membrane Technologies for a Dairy Plant Using Water Pinch Simulation Software

The main goal of this study is to evaluate possible reuse routes of effluents from adairy plant. First, the water flow in the plant was evaluated. All water consumed and effluents generated by the industrial process were quantified and characterized. In addition, the water quality parameters required for different industrial activities were assessed. Secondly, a treatment system using a membrane bioreactor and a nanofiltration reactor, from a study previously conducted by the authors, was considered. Then, a water pinch analysis was carried out through the application of the collected data using the Water Pinch software. Both direct reuse/recycle and regeneration schemes were investigated. In this context, although the direct reuse/recycle of effluents were shown to be able to reduce the freshwater use for the clean-in-place process (CIP) by 33.4%; the schemes with the regeneration of the effluents showed up to 66.7% and 95.4% of freshwater reduction for the CIP and general processes, respectively. Finally, four water reuse routes were proposed. The proposed route combining the most advanced treatment technologies studied showed the best performance in terms of reduction of the total freshwater consumption (69.5%) in the dairy plant