Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Sep:102:104253.
doi: 10.1016/j.etap.2023.104253. Epub 2023 Aug 20.

Microplastics and nanoplastics in haemodialysis waters: Emerging threats to be in our radar

Robson S Passos  1 , Andrew Davenport  2 , Rosa Busquets  3 , Clare Selden  4 , Luiz B Silva  5 , J Santos Baptista  6 , Damià Barceló  7 , Luiza C Campos  8
Affiliations
Free article
Review

Microplastics and nanoplastics in haemodialysis waters: Emerging threats to be in our radar

Robson S Passos et al. Environ Toxicol Pharmacol. 2023 Sep.
Free article

Abstract

Microplastics are present in the environment, in drinking water, in human blood and there is evidence of nanoplastics in tap water. The objective of this work was to analyze the possibility of hemodialysis patients being contaminated by micro and nanoplastics (MNPs) during dialysis treatment. The motivation for this investigation is the fact that hemodialysis patients use about 300-600 L of drinking water per week, which may be contaminated by MNPs. A literature review, a field investigation in a London hospital and an estimation of MNPs intake in patients were carried out. The results showed potential points of risk of contamination of patients by MNPs in hemodialysis. It was also estimated that for a filtration efficiency of 99 % for MNPs, the amount of microplastics that can penetrate the kidneys of patients is 0.0021-3768 particles/week. The assessment concludes that hemodialysis patients are at high risk of MNP contamination.

Keywords: Filtration; Kidney disease; Plasticisers; Reverse osmosis; Risk; Water.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

LinkOut - more resources