PMID- 21257204
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20110517
LR  - 20191210
IS  - 1873-6750 (Electronic)
IS  - 0160-4120 (Linking)
VI  - 37
IP  - 3
DP  - 2011 Apr
TI  - Sewage epidemiology--a real-time approach to estimate the consumption of illicit 
      drugs in Brussels, Belgium.
PG  - 612-21
LID - 10.1016/j.envint.2010.12.006 [doi]
AB  - The sewage epidemiology approach was applied to a one-year sampling campaign in 
      the largest wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Belgium. The consumption of 
      cocaine (COC), amphetamine (AMP), methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), 
      methamphetamine (METH), methadone (MTD) and heroin (HER) was evaluated based on 
      measured concentrations of the parent compound and/or metabolites in daily 
      24-hour composite influent wastewater samples. The inevitable back-calculations 
      used in the sewage epidemiology approach were adapted to newly available 
      information regarding the stability of the compounds in wastewater and the 
      excretion pattern of illicit drugs. For COC, three different back-calculation 
      approaches were evaluated. In addition, for the first time, efforts were made to 
      calculate the number of inhabitants living in the catchment area of the WWTP in a 
      real-time and dynamic way, based on concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus and 
      oxygen in the wastewater samples. Clear variations in the amount of inhabitants 
      in the catchment area of the WWTP were observed. For COC, AMP and MDMA a 
      significant higher weekend use was observed while for HER and MTD no significant 
      daily variations could be found. METH consumption was negligible. Generally, the 
      sewage epidemiology calculations were in agreement with official statistics. This 
      manuscript shows that sewage epidemiology provides consistent and logical results 
      and that it is a promising tool that can be used in addition to classical studies 
      to estimate illicit drug use in populations. Therefore, efforts should be made to 
      further optimize this approach in the future.
CI  - Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
FAU - van Nuijs, Alexander L N
AU  - van Nuijs AL
AD  - Toxicological Centre, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of 
      Antwerp (UA), Universiteitsplein 1, 2610 Antwerp, Belgium. 
      alexander.vannuijs@ua.ac.be
FAU - Mougel, Jean-Francois
AU  - Mougel JF
FAU - Tarcomnicu, Isabela
AU  - Tarcomnicu I
FAU - Bervoets, Lieven
AU  - Bervoets L
FAU - Blust, Ronny
AU  - Blust R
FAU - Jorens, Philippe G
AU  - Jorens PG
FAU - Neels, Hugo
AU  - Neels H
FAU - Covaci, Adrian
AU  - Covaci A
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20110122
PL  - Netherlands
TA  - Environ Int
JT  - Environment international
JID - 7807270
RN  - 0 (Illicit Drugs)
RN  - 0 (Sewage)
RN  - 0 (Water Pollutants, Chemical)
RN  - 27YLU75U4W (Phosphorus)
RN  - 44RAL3456C (Methamphetamine)
RN  - 70D95007SX (Heroin)
RN  - I5Y540LHVR (Cocaine)
RN  - KE1SEN21RM (N-Methyl-3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine)
RN  - N762921K75 (Nitrogen)
RN  - UC6VBE7V1Z (Methadone)
SB  - IM
MH  - Belgium
MH  - Biological Oxygen Demand Analysis
MH  - Cocaine/analysis
MH  - Demography
MH  - Heroin/analysis
MH  - Humans
MH  - Illicit Drugs/*analysis
MH  - Methadone/analysis
MH  - Methamphetamine/analysis
MH  - N-Methyl-3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine/analysis
MH  - Nitrogen/analysis
MH  - Phosphorus/analysis
MH  - Sewage/*chemistry
MH  - Substance Abuse Detection/*methods
MH  - Substance-Related Disorders/*epidemiology
MH  - Water Pollutants, Chemical/*analysis
MH  - Water Pollution, Chemical/statistics & numerical data
EDAT- 2011/01/25 06:00
MHDA- 2011/05/18 06:00
CRDT- 2011/01/25 06:00
PHST- 2010/11/18 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2010/12/16 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2010/12/17 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2011/01/25 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2011/01/25 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2011/05/18 06:00 [medline]
AID - S0160-4120(10)00251-5 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.envint.2010.12.006 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Environ Int. 2011 Apr;37(3):612-21. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2010.12.006. Epub 2011 
      Jan 22.