Evaluation of surface contamination in a hospital hematology--oncology pharmacy.

Objective. To describe environmental contamination with hazardous drugs in a hospital pharmacy setting before and after reorganizing a hematology— oncology satellite pharmacy.Methods. This is a descriptive study of surface contamination with cyclophosphamide, ifosfamide, and methotrexate in two hematology—oncology satellite pharmacies. In order to measure surface contamination with hazardous drugs, samples from four distinct measurement sites within the pharmacy were taken in each of the two phases (pre-and postphases) using a sampling procedure and an analytical method modified from Larson et al.Results. A total of 133 samples from four measurement sites were taken and analyzed over the course of the study (specifically 60 prephase samples and 73 postphase samples). The study showed a significant increase in the number of positive samples (from 66.7% to 90.4%, p<0.001) from the pre- to the postphase. The increase, however, is only significant in terms of the location where completed preparations were pla...