Development of a new method for sampling and monitoring oncology staff exposed to cyclophosphamide drug

Abstract

Treatment using cytotoxic drugs is considered to be the most common treatment for cancers. However, the widespread use of these drugs on the health status of the staff at the oncology department has become a great concern. Due to challenges of sampling and analysis of cytotoxic drugs, the aim of this study was to development a novel practical method called Needle trap devices (NTD) for sampling and analysis of personal exposure to cyclophosphamide drug. The sampler consisted of a stainless steel hyper needle gauge 21 of length 9 cm packed with Carboxen 1000 for adsorbing cyclophosphamide. A total of 41 samples of staff's air breathing zone in different wards of the oncology department were taken with the sampler. Samples were analyzed by gas chromatography coupled with electron capture detector (ECD). Linear range concentration was 212-1062 μg/m(3), and LOD and LOQ were 100 and 191 μg/m(3), respectively. The mean inter-day and intra-day coefficient variations for standards within linear range concentration were 8.9 and 4.8 %, respectively. Detectable levels of cyclophosphamide were measured in 31.7 % of air samples. The developed method is user-friendly, quick, and precise for sampling of airborne cyclophosphamide. The results showed that some staff of the oncology department were exposed to the carcinogenic drug and their health were at risk. Since carcinogens do not have a threshold and oncology staffs with their continuous exposure might be at risk, therefore, proper work practice and adequate control measures are essential to ensure their wellbeing.

Biological Monitoring of the Oncology Healthcare Staff Exposed to Cyclophosphamide in Two Hospitals in Tehran

“…Occupational exposure to CPA drug was reported to be taking place through respiratory and skin routes (35)(36)(37). The authors of this study have recently published articles measuring the external exposure of the same oncology personnel's exposure to CPA through the skin route (34,38). In accordance with our previous data for the external occupational exposure to CPA through skin contamination, and also with the data from the urinary concentration of the same group of personnel in the present study, significant statistical correlation was observed (P < 0.05).…”

Validation of a New Method for the Monitoring of Environmental Benzene at Low Concentration Using the Needle Trap Device

“…Another advantage of the NTD over SPME is the durability of the sampler; this is because the NTD is not as fragile as the SPME fiber [36]. The reliability and sensitivity issues concerning the analysis of low concentration of chemicals in environmental and occupational exposures have been reported for both the NTD and the SPME sampling analysis [37]. Other authors have reported the advantages of NTD over SPME in terms of higher precision and sensitivity [12,38].…”

Cytostatics in Indoor Environment: An Update of Analytical Methods

“…From the aforementioned search, 18 articles were categorized as analytical methods: 16 for surface contamination [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] and two for air contamination [26,27]. The other two articles will not be further examined here as they refer to non-analytical methods for surface contamination assessment [28,29].…”

“…Conventional methods to assess pollutants in air are mostly based on active sampling, using paper or glass fiber filters to capture airborne particles. Indeed, most previous methods described for air contamination with cytostatics have followed that procedure [26]. However, CYC has been found to sublimate or evaporate off the filter (as air continues to be pulled through it) [37]; thus, some authors have developed alternative methods using solid sorbents to collect CYC as a vapor [37,38].…”

“…More recently, Panahi et al considered the use of novel methods for sampling and analysis of low concentration of contaminants: solid phase microextraction (SPME) and needle trap devices (NTD). They opted for NTD since it uses active sampling (while SPME requires passive sampling), which may contribute to higher precision, besides being user-friendly and fast [26]. On the other hand, Wakui et al decided to use a high-performance VOC-SD passive air sampler to overcome problems associated with active samplers, such as difficulty in equipment installation and sampling noise, and because they are easy to carry (which is relevant for personal sampling) [27].…”