Cytotoxic drug: Towards safer chemotherapy practices

Abstract

Health care is nearly 10 years behind other industries in its efforts to reduce the errors. Medication error may be nobody's baby, but when it happens, it could well turn out to be everyone's worry and the reasons given for medication error range from silly to the downright serious. The anticancer drugs are known to be mutagenic, teratogenic and carcinogenic, so extra precaution should be taken while storing, diluting, administering the drugs and disposing the waste. The objectives of this article are to define the standards for using cancer chemotherapy in hospitals; to tackle any spillage of drug and how to dispose of the waste of anticancer drugs. This could be beneficial to any hospital where chemotherapy is given without any defined standard operating procedure.

Impact of computerised physician order entry (CPOE) on the incidence of chemotherapy-related medication errors: a systematic review

“…MEs in oncology have a greater impact on patient lives as cancer patients are vulnerable, and many chemotherapeutic agents exhibit a narrow therapeutic index [ 5 ]. The Institute of Safe Medication Practices has placed cancer chemotherapeutics at the top of the list of high-alert medications in acute, ambulatory, and long-term care settings [ 6 ].…”

How human activity impacted manufacturing non-compliances: A multivariate analysis in a centralized cytotoxic preparation unit

“…Oncological preparations must be carried out in accordance with validated protocols that regulate the environment, operators, methods and devices used and according to standards operating procedures. 6 Those protocols must be regularly reassessed and validated, at regular intervals, and anytime if one of the items mentioned above is amended. The pharmacist in charge of the hospital pharmacy's galenic laboratory will be responsible for performing the process validation.…”