Skip Navigation



Annals of Occupational Hygiene Advance Access published online on September 5, 2005
Annals of Occupational Hygiene, doi:10.1093/annhyg/mei051
This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
50/2/189    most recent
mei051v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Jolibois, B.
Right arrow Articles by Guerbet, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Jolibois, B.
Right arrow Articles by Guerbet, M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© 2005 British Occupational Hygiene Society
Received January 29, 2005
Accepted August 8, 2005

Article

Hospital Wastewater Genotoxicity

B. Jolibois 1* and M. Guerbet 2

1 Laboratoire de Toxicologie, Faculté de Médecine et de Pharmacie, 22 Blvd Gambetta, F-76183 Rouen cedex, France; Service Hygiène Hospitalière, Centre Hospitalier de Compiègne, 8 avenue Henri Adnot, F-60321 Compiègne Cedex, France
2 Laboratoire de Toxicologie, Faculté de Médecine et de Pharmacie, 22 Blvd Gambetta, F-76183 Rouen cedex, France

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
B. Jolibois, E-mail: bjolibois001{at}ch-compiegne.rss.fr


  Abstract

Hospitals represent an incontestable release source of many chemicals compounds in their wastewaters, and which may have an impact on the environment and human health. Indeed, some of the substances found in wastewaters are genotoxic and are suspected to be a possible cause of the cancers observed in the last decades. To study the toxicity and the risk associated with these releases biological tests, such as genotoxicity tests, can be used. An evaluation of the genotoxic potential of the wastewaters from a university hospital was performed with the SOS chromotest and the Salmonella fluctuation test. The samples were taken for six 1-week periods between May 2001 and April 2003. Out of a total of 38 samples tested, 31 were positive in at least one assay (82%). Distribution, proportion and intensity of the genotoxic response were different among the six sampling periods. The two genotoxicity tests had different sensitivities. It must be emphasized that whatever the sampling period, Monday samples were always genotoxic in at least one assay. This work shows that this hospital wastewaters samples are very often genotoxic, the response intensity being inflected by rain levels. Efforts must be undertaken by hospitals to integrate the knowledge and the control of their wastewaters in infection and environmental control programs.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 BMJHome page
Minerva
BMJ, April 1, 2006; 332(7544): 802 - 802.
[Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.