Version 1
: Received: 29 February 2024 / Approved: 1 March 2024 / Online: 1 March 2024 (07:58:00 CET)
How to cite:
Charles, M. Occupational Exposure to Antineoplastic Drugs among Healthcare Workers: A Literature Review. Preprints2024, 2024030024. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.0024.v1
Charles, M. Occupational Exposure to Antineoplastic Drugs among Healthcare Workers: A Literature Review. Preprints 2024, 2024030024. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.0024.v1
Charles, M. Occupational Exposure to Antineoplastic Drugs among Healthcare Workers: A Literature Review. Preprints2024, 2024030024. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.0024.v1
APA Style
Charles, M. (2024). Occupational Exposure to Antineoplastic Drugs among Healthcare Workers: A Literature Review. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.0024.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Charles, M. 2024 "Occupational Exposure to Antineoplastic Drugs among Healthcare Workers: A Literature Review" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.0024.v1
Abstract
Background: Healthcare workers are exposed to several hazardous chemicals in the workplace that can result in numerous adverse health effects. Several published studies from many different countries have documented the presence of metabolites from antineoplastic drugs in the urine of healthcare workers and demonstrated contaminated working surfaces with these agents. This study is a literature review that aims to compare the prevalence and degree of exposure to cyclophosphamide (CP), ifosfamide (IFO), and methotrexate (MTX) in physicians, nurses, and pharmacists in the hospital setting.
Methods: An extensive search was conducted on PubMed, Google Scholar, HINARI, OARE, and Science Direct where applicable research about healthcare workers and antineoplastic drugs exposure were identified. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) keywords: occupational exposure, antineoplastic drugs (cytotoxic drugs, cyclophosphamide, ifosfamide, methotrexate), hazardous chemicals, healthcare workers (healthcare professionals, nurses, pharmacists, physicians), hospital setting, and adverse health outcomes were used. Thereafter, relevant articles from 2000 to 2020 were selected to perform this literature review.
Results: Review of literature demonstrated that cyclophosphamide was the most prevalent contaminant in the hospital setting. Additionally, pharmacists are among the group of healthcare workers with the highest prevalence of antineoplastic agents in urine samples while nursing stations had the highest rate of surface contamination.
Conclusion: There is an urgent need to develop a system to monitor and detect the pathway of environmental exposure to antineoplastic drugs in the healthcare setting, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the existing protective measures. Well designed studies focusing on improving the standard safety precautions is a priority to protect healthcare workers.
Keywords
hedging; transaction costs; dynamic programming; risk management; post-decision state variable
Subject
Public Health and Healthcare, Primary Health Care
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
