How Does Certain Cancer Treatments Affect the Surrounding Environment?

Published March 25, 2014

Question by Julia: How does certain cancer treatments affect the surrounding environment?
I need help with my case study research paper and so far I only have the chemical “Taxol” to describe the negative impacts cancer treatment has on the ecosystem.

I am using this case study: http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/collection/detail.asp?case_id=198&id=198

Please help, thanks in advance!
Oh and if you can, it would be greatly appreciated if links were provided to support your answer 🙂

Best answer:

Answer by Matt
Diagnosis and treatment of cancer frequently utilizes nuclear medical devices, especially PET/CT and external radiotherapy generate radioactive waste (low level). These need to be disposed of. Half life for this type of waste ranges from a few day to 30 years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Medical

There is some concern over human waste from patients undergoing chemotherapy. The drugs pass through the patients’ systems and then are treated as sewage. There is no evidence that there is a build up of these drugs in the water supply on a global scale, but there may be localized concerns.
http://www.ceh.ac.uk/news/news_archive/2008_news_item_32.html
http://pharma-cycle.com/environdangers.html

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