RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Relevance of Microcystin Monitoring in Dialysis Centers of Sicilians Cities: An Environmental Study
Pietro Zuccarello1, Gea Oliveri Conti1, *, Maria Fiore1, M.G. Elfio2, Sonia Saitta1, Chiara Copat1, Antonio Cristaldi1, Margherita Ferrante1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2020Volume: 13
First Page: 823
Last Page: 828
Publisher ID: TOPHJ-13-823
DOI: 10.2174/1874944502013010823
Article History:
Received Date: 24/6/2020Revision Received Date: 25/11/2020
Acceptance Date: 26/11/2020
Electronic publication date: 31/12/2020
Collection year: 2020
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Sicilian surface basins are among the most important water supply resources available on the island. They are often affected by harmful cyanobacteria blooms as Planktothrix rubescens and Microcystis aeruginosa. Since dialysates are produced using network water, they could contain cyanotoxins. No study has been conducted yet to evaluate the removal efficiency of osmotic systems for cyanotoxins in abnormal conditions at room temperatures of about 40°C. The aim of this study was to monitor the presence of microcystins in Sicilian dialysis center, network waters and, finally, dialysates produced from these waters in an Agrigento dialysis unit where environmental conditions are favorable for algal bloom.
Methods:
This clinic normally receives surface water from artificial basins, where several times, traces of cyanobacteria have been detected. Moreover, dialysates and underground supply waters of a clinic in Catania were also sampled as control. Samplings were performed in summer 2018, when room temperatures were above 38 °C. A total of 40 samples were analyzed by ELISA assay.
Results:
Results of our monitoring highlighted concentrations of MCs in waters of several basins among LOD - 155 ng/L, lower than WHO reference value for drinking waters (1,0 µg/L), that decrease up to undetectable levels whereas no MC contamination was detected both in supply waters and dialysates.
Conclusion:
Although our first set of data outcomes seem to be quite comforting, an improvement of law and a complete census of the water supplies of dialysate centers would be ideal.
