title: Risk assessment for ecotoxicity of pharmaceuticals--an emerging issue.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Existence of a large amount of pharmaceuticals and their active metabolites in the environment has recently been considered as one of the most serious concerns in environmental sciences. Large diversity of pharmaceuticals has been found in the environmental domain in considerable amounts that are not only destructive to environment but also fatal for human and animal fraternity.
  
  
  METHODS
  There is a considerable lack of knowledge about the environmental fate and quantification of a large number of pharmaceuticals. This communication aims to review the literature information regarding occurrence of pharmaceuticals and their metabolites in the environment, their persistence, environmental fate and toxicity as well as application of theoretical, non-experimental, non-animal, alternative and, in particular, in silico methods to provide information about the basic physicochemical and fate properties of pharmaceuticals to the environment. The reader will gain an overview of risk assessment strategies for ecotoxicity of pharmaceuticals and advances in application of quantitative structure-toxicity relationship (QSTR) in this field.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This review justifies the need to develop more QSTR models for prediction of ecotoxicity of pharmaceuticals in order to reduce time and cost involvement in such exercise.
authors.affiliation: Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.
authors.forename: Supratik
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kar
authors.forename: Kunal
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Roy
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016208:Databases, Factual; D064420:Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions; D017753:Ecosystem; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000379:methods*; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000009:adverse effects*; D033161:Government Regulation; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D015394:Molecular Structure; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000737:chemistry; D021281:Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship; D018570:Risk Assessment; D018675:Toxicity Tests
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations