Antineoplastic drugs in urban wastewater: Occurrence, nanofiltration treatment and toxicity screening*

Antineoplastic drugs are pharmaceuticals that have been raising concerns among the scientific community due to: (i) their increasing prescription in the fight against the disease of the twentieth century (cancer); (ii) their recalcitrance to conventional wastewater treatments; (iii) their poor environmental biodegradability; and (iv) their potential risk to any eukaryotic organism. This emerges the urgency in finding solutions to mitigate the entrance and accumulation of these hazardous chemicals in the environment. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have been taken into consideration to improve the degradation of antineoplastic drugs in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), but the formation of by-products that are more toxic or exhibit a different toxicity profile than the parent drug is frequently reported. This work evaluates the performance of a nanofiltration pilot unit, equipped with a Desal 5DK membrane, in the treatment of real WWTP effluents contaminated (without spiking) with eleven pharmaceuticals, five of which were never studied before. Average removals of 68 & PLUSMN; 23% were achieved for the eleven compounds, with decreasing risks from feed to permeate for aquatic organisms from receiving waterbodies (with the exception of cyclophosphamide, for which a high risk was estimated in the permeate). Aditionally, no significative impact on the growth and germination of three different seeds (Lepidium sativum, Sinapis alba, and Sorghum saccharatum) were determined for permeate matrix in comparison to the control.& nbsp;This research was financially supported by: (i) Project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031297 (CytoStraTech) -funded by FEDER funds through COMPETE2020-Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizacao (POCI) and by national funds (PIDDAC) through FCT/MCTES; (ii) NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000069 (Healthy Waters) co-funded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) , through North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020) , under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement; (iii) UIDB/04750/2020 (EPIUnit) and LA/P/0064/2020 (ITR) , funded by national funds through the FCT-Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P.; (iv) LA/P/0045/2020 (ALiCE) , Base Fundings UIDB/00511/2020 and UIDP/00511/2020 (LEPABE) and UIDB/50020/2020 and UIDP/50020/2020 (LSRE-LCM) , funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) . This work was also funded by Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia/Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior (FCT/MCTES, Portugal) through national funds to iNOVA4Health (UIDB/04462/2020 and UIDP/04462/2020) and the Associate Laboratory LS4FUTURE (LA/P/0087/2020) . Teresa I.A. Gouveia and Vanessa Jorge Pereira would like to thank the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for Ph.D. (SFRH/BD/147301/2019) and CEECIND/02919/2018 grants, respectively

Colite pseudomembranosa : uma casuística de internamentos

Introduction: pseudomembranous colitis (PMC) is an infectious disease that generally begins after antibiotic treatment. Objectives: Characterize the patients with PMC in two Services of a Central Hospital. Material and Methods: we considered the patients admitted in a Medicine (MS) and in a Gastroenterology (GES) Service with primary or secondary diagnosis of PMC, between January/1995 and July/2003 and registered the age, gender, clinical presentation, antibiotics (AB) and other risk factors, diagnostic procedures, complications and treatment. Results: we considered 80 patients (43 - GES and 37 - MS); Mean age - 68,6 ± 17,7 years; 52,5% were male; Antibiotic treatment in the previous 3 months - 85%; Mean time of antibiotic treatment - 10,5 ± 6,1 days. Most Commonly Involved Antibiotics: cephalosporins, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid and quinolones. Associated risk factors: renal insufficiency (22,5%); cardiac insufficiency (22,5%); previously dependent patient ( 36,3%). Diagnostic procedures: toxin search-58 patients ( in 36 ), colonoscopy - 62 ( in 53); culture - 23 (in 17 ). The mortality rate was 18,8% (n = 15); recurrence rate - 10% (n = 8). Therapeutics: metronidazol - 37 patients (46,3%); vancomycin - 24 (30%); metronidazol + vancomycin – 12 (15%). Differences Between Services: mean age (MS - 72,9 and GES - 64,9); admission criteria (GES - intestinal disorders, MS – respiratory infections); diagnostic procedures (colonoscopy more frequent in GES); therapeutic options (MS - metronidazol; GES - vancomycin and metronidazol + vancomycin). Conclusions: PMC is more common in older patients that were generally submitted to previous antibiotic treatment, especially with ß-lactamics. Considering two distinct Services we observed differences concerning age, co-morbility and risk factors that implied distinct diagnostic and therapeutic approaches

Nanofiltration combined with ozone-based processes for the removal of antineoplastic drugs from wastewater effluents

Over the past years, there has been an increasing concern about the occurrence of antineoplastic drugs in water bodies. The incomplete removal of these pharmaceuticals from wastewaters has been confirmed by several scientists, making it urgent to find a reliable technique or a combination of techniques capable to produce clean and safe water. In this work, the combination of nanofiltration and ozone (O3)-based processes (NF + O3, NF + O3/H2O2 and NF + O3/H2O2/UVA) was studied aiming to produce clean water from wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) secondary effluents to be safely discharged into water bodies, reused in daily practices such as aquaculture activities or for recharging aquifers used as abstraction sources for drinking water production. Nanofiltration was performed in a pilot-scale unit and O3-based processes in a continuous-flow column. The peroxone process (O3/H2O2) was considered the most promising technology to be coupled to nanofiltration, all the target pharmaceuticals being removed at an extent higher than 98% from WWTP secondary effluents, with a DOC reduction up to 92%. The applicability of the clean water stream for recharging aquifers used as abstraction sources for drinking water production was supported by a risk assessment approach, regarding the final concentrations of the target pharmaceuticals. Moreover, the toxicity of the nanofiltration retentate, a polluted stream generated from the nanofiltration system, was greatly decreased after the application of the peroxone process, which evidences the positive impact on the environment of implementing a NF + O3/H2O2 process

Scheduling of home health care services based on multi-agent systems

Home Health Care (HHC) services are growing worldwide and, usually, the home care visits are manually planned, being a time and effort consuming task that leads to a non optimized solution. The use of some optimization techniques can significantly improve the quality of the scheduling solutions, but lacks the achievement of solutions that face the fast reaction to condition changes. In such stochastic and very volatile environments, the fast re-scheduling is crucial to maintain the system in operation. Taking advantage of the inherent distributed and intelligent characteristics of Multi-agent Systems (MAS), this paper introduces a methodology that combines the optimization features provided by centralized scheduling algorithms, e.g. genetic algorithms, with the responsiveness features provided by MAS solutions. The proposed approach was codified in Matlab and NetLogo and applied to a real-world HHC case study. The experimental results showed a significant improvement in the quality of scheduling solutions, as well as in the responsiveness to achieve those solutions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio