Biological Monitoring on the Absorption of Antineoplastic Drugs in Nursing Personnel

Kim, Bong Im

Abstract

Antineoplastic agents may exhibit effects not only in patients therapeutically exposed, but also in health workers who prepare and administer these drugs. This study was done to clarify whether nurses who handle anticancer drugs show signs of drug absorption. The experimental group was 14 nurses handling anticancer drugs at three medical wards of a hospital in J city ; the control group was 12 psychiatric nurses at the same hospital. The test materials were the nurses' 24hr urine specimens, which were concentrated by XAD-2column chromatograpy. Tester strains were TA98(+/-S9mix), TA100(+/-S9mix), TA135(+/-S9mix)and TA1537(+/-S9mix) ; the salmonella mammalian microsomal test(Ames test) was used for the urinary mutagenicity assay. The results are summarized as follow : 1. In qualitative analysis of the results, both experimental group and control group showed 15.4% urine toxicity. 2. The experimental group revealed significantly higher urinary mutagenicity both in the activation method test and non-activation method test of the tester strains TA98, TA100 and TA1535. In the case of TA1537, the two groups showed no difference in the non-activation method test, but the activation method revealed a difference. 3. In urinary mutagenicity of the experimental group by ward career, there was a significant difference between the group with more than 20 months experience and the group with less than 20 months on the tester strains TA98, TA100, and two groups by the tester strain TA1537. No Significant difference was found between two groups by the tester strain TA1535.