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National Safe Handling Awareness Month/Day Return in April 2010
Now in its second year, National Safe Handling Awareness Month is a national campaign aimed at furthering education surrounding the occupational risks associated with handling hazardous drugs and the U.S. guidelines that have been implemented to help prevent hazardous drug exposure. As the highlight of Safe Handling Awareness Month, Safe Handling Awareness Day – Tuesday, April 20, 2010 – will once again bring together national and regional educational opportunities collectively aimed at preserving the health and wellbeing of the oncology healthcare professionals who devote their lives to helping others.
Save the Date: Complimentary Safe Handling CE Webinar on April 20th, at 1pm and 3pm EST
At Carmel Pharma, we’re proud to be the official sponsor of National Safe Handling Awareness Month/Day, and we’re glad to encourage safe handling awareness by sharing educational resources that may facilitate increased employee safety and the proper handling of hazardous drugs.
Chief among these resources is a complimentary, safe handling CE webinar that will take place on National Safe Handling Awareness Day, April 20, 2010 at both 1pm and 3pm EST. More than 800 participants took advantage of this educational initiative in 2009, which featured industry experts from the Siteman Cancer Center at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO; Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD; and Clarian Health Partners, Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, IN. A series of regional CE initiatives will also be scheduled throughout the month of April 2010.
To register for the complimentary Second Annual National Safe Handling Awareness Day Webinar on April 20, visit www.statce.com/shad2010reg/.
Cytotoxic drugs were developed from mustard gas used in WWI. At that time, there were very few safety standards in place with regard to hazardous drug handling, with clinicians using only gloves, masks and gowns for protection. Horizontal laminar flow hoods were introduced later and were used in some places through the late 1970s.
By the late 1970s (specifically 1979), the University of Helsinki reported that traces of chemotherapeutic agents were found in the urine of oncology nurses. Then, in the early 1980s, nurses reported that they were experiencing side effects similar to those of chemotherapy patients – including nausea, vomiting, hair loss and mouth sores (Source: NITA 1980). This triggered the industry – particularly hospitals – to take notice and perform various studies to identify the cause of these side effects. Results from these studies showed mutagenic activity in personnel working in horizontal laminar flow hoods. This was due to consistent contamination not only on the horizontal laminar air flow hoods but also in the air samples taken from each pharmacy. Based on these findings, new vertical laminar air flow hoods, called biological safety cabinets (BSC), were implemented as the new standard for the safe handling of hazardous drugs.
Wipe studies published in the 1990s and early 2000s consistently reported similar, and it was soon clear that, regardless of how careful and skilled employees were, contamination was still a problem. These studies found that contamination appeared in approximately 75% of samples taken from pharmacy areas such as laminar hoods, the floor of the preparation area, the work surface inside the hood and pharmacists’ shoes, gloves and gowns. Contamination also appeared in 65% of the administration areas, including the floor around the patient’s chair, the office telephone, the patient’s bed, the top of the preparation area and preparation trays.
Because of the recurring findings, OSHA published the following statement on the potential hazards of handling antineoplastic and hazardous drugs in 1996:
“Preparation, administration and disposal of hazardous drugs, may expose pharmacists, nurses, physicians and other health care workers to potentially significant workplace levels of these chemicals.”
Today, studies continue to find hazardous drug contamination throughout pharmacy and nursing settings and in the urine of oncology staff, including those not directly involved in the preparation process. It is this contamination, as well as the documented risks associated with hazardous drug exposure, that makes it particularly important to establish and adhere to a clinically-proven drug safety program intended to prevent hazardous drug exposure.
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