Simvastatin

Although we did not detect any ATV metabolites in surface water, interestingly we did detect the presence of the main and active metabolite of the statin prodrug simvastatin (SV); simvastatin hydroxy carboxylic acid (SVA) in four of the surface water and sediments collected from Oslofjord.The surface water samples collected contained SVA at concentrations > LODand up to 66 ng L^-1, whilst two sediment samples contained low ng g^-1 (dw) concentrations of SVA also. No effluent concentrations of SVA were determined; however, we have previously reported the occurrence of SV at low ng L^-1 in VEAS WwTW effluent suggesting from these preliminary data that effluent concentrations of SVA would indeed be higher. This hypothesis is supported by the published occurrence of SVA in US WwTW effluents at low ng L^-1 concentrations and surface water concentrations of <0.25 ng L^-5. Pharmacokinetic studies have shown that around 15%is excreted in urine as SVA and 85% in faeces as SVA; an excretion ratio of 6 : 1 of SVA : SA. This may explain why SV has not been detected in previous screening surveys of surface water samples collected from Oslofjord, whilst SVA was detected. One other metabolite that was detected in the surface water and sediment samples collected from Oslofjord was OHMET, which was present in the surface water samples collected at concentrations of between 25 and 108 ng L^-1 and in the sediments collected at very low ng g^-1 concentrations.