Antineoplastic drugs handling and risk assessment in health care settings

By far, data from the World Cancer Report 2014 say that the number of cases is expected to grow by 50% over the next 20 years. As a result, treatments by means of conventional antineoplastic drugs (ADs) and/or monoclonal antibody has been increasing in number and amount of handled substances. Therefore, a heavy workload may put hospital personnel at a severe exposure to these hazardous drugs. Cytostatic drugs  do not exert therapeutic effects in cancer patients but also have the potential to harm healthcare workers who prepare and administer ADs such as pharmacists and nurses. This study aims to show the rate of changing of exposure levels over a long-term monitoring surveillance programs carried out in hospitals. Environmental data and pre and post-shift urine samples collected from workers are reported. Based on this data a large database has been created in order to set a valuable benchmark for antineoplastic drugs.