Human pharmaceuticals in fillet of fish species of interest for consumption in the Uruguay River

ROJO, M.; ÁLVAREZ-MUÑOZ, D.; DOMÁNICO, A.; RODRIGUEZ-MOZAZ S; BARCELÓ D.; CARRIQUIRIBORDE, P.

Orlando

Congreso; 7th SETAC World Congress SETAC North America 37th Annual Meeting; 2016

Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

The Uruguay River, is an important South American river that flows from north to south along 1,838 km and form part of the boundary of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. CARU is a binational Commission created to administrate the shared sector of the river between Argentina and Uruguay and, among other responsibilities, it is aimed to protect the fisheries and living resources. Several cities are located along this sector of the river that receive its wastewater, raw or poorly treated. Human pharmaceuticals are excreted by the urine and feces through the sewage drain, and are unable to be fully degraded by treatment plants. Then, concern has raised on the potential accumulation of these compound on fish species that are usually consumed. In the present study the concentration of 20 pharmaceuticals were measured by ASE-GPC-HPLC-MS/MS in the muscle of three emblematic fish species: Prochilodus lineatus (sábalo), Leporinus obtusidens (boga) and Salminus brasiliensis (dorado) caught in 10 localities under the CARU jurisdictional area. Only 9, 6 and 3 of the 20 compounds were detected at least once in boga, sabalo and dorado, respectively. Carbamazepine was ubiquitous, but always below quantification levels. Atenolol, clopidogrel and metoprolol followed it in occurrence frequency. Maximum total concentration of the studied pharmaceuticals was found in boga (20.9 µg/Kg) and significantly higher values were observed for boga and dorado collected from the sites located in lower sector of the river compared with the intermediate and upper sectors. The highest concentrations were observed for propranolol (6.44 µg/Kg) and atenolol (5.49 µg/Kg) in boga. Although not specific regulation exist for this family of compounds in Argentina, the observed concentrations were below the maximum residues limits (MRL) established for pharmaceuticals by the European Union in food stuffs from animal origin (Commission regulation (EU) No 37/2010). This was the first report on bioaccumulation of pharmaceuticals of fish in the Uruguay River, and despite values are low and they should not pose a risk for human health, its presence would deserve more detailed studies and consider them in the monitoring programs.