Insect-based models in pharmaceutical ecotoxicology: a bibliometric and narrative review

Abstract

Pharmaceutical waste has been recognized as an emerging contaminant that is increasingly detected in the environment and may pose ecotoxicological risks. This review aims to describe the global development of research on pharmaceutical waste within the field of ecotoxicology and to examine the role of insects in trophic food-chain exposure pathways. A bibliometric analysis was conducted using the Scopus database, comprising 1,051 articles published between 2010 and 2025. The results show a consistent upward trend in publications, with pharmaceutical ecotoxicology research predominantly focused on aquatic environments, environmental risk assessment, contaminant monitoring, and toxicological evaluation. Keyword analysis further indicates that terrestrial exposure pathways remain comparatively less emphasized within the current bibliometric landscape. The narrative review indicates that pharmaceutical waste can accumulate in organisms and be transferred through the food chain, leading to various physiological and systemic toxic effects, even at low environmental concentrations. In this context, insects play a strategic role as mediators of trophic exposure. Hermetia illucens is relevant in waste management and biotransformation processes, while Drosophila melanogaster is a well-established model organism for investigating physiological and molecular responses to pharmaceutical compound exposure. Thus, this review discusses the potential of an insect-based ecotoxicology framework in which H. illucens may serve as a bioconversion model for waste processing and D. melanogaster as a mechanistic model for toxicological studies. We also highlight the need for a more integrative ecotoxicological approach to pharmaceutical waste that explicitly considers insect involvement and food chain – based exposure pathways.

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