(Press-News.org) FALLS CHURCH, Va. (October 3, 2014) — A new National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) study, published online in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, found that recommended safe handling practices for workers who administer antineoplastic drugs in healthcare settings are not always followed.
Results are derived from the 2011 Health and Safety Practices Survey of Healthcare Workers, the largest federally-sponsored survey of healthcare workers in the U.S., which addresses safety and health practices relative to use of hazardous chemicals. This paper presents findings on current administrative and engineering control practices, personal protective equipment (PPE), and barriers to using recommended PPE during administration of antineoplastic drugs by nearly 2,100 oncology nurses and other healthcare personnel who completed a module addressing antineoplastic drug administration.
"Chemotherapy drugs save lives of cancer patients but also can result in adverse health outcomes in workers who are exposed to these drugs, including cancer, reproductive problems, and organ damage when recommended safe handling guidelines are not followed," said NIOSH Director John Howard, MD. "Safeguarding healthcare workers from potential occupational hazards is an essential part of providing good jobs for these dedicated women and men, and furthering high-quality patient care."
Findings suggest that best practices are not always used. Below are examples of practices that may increase exposure risk, expressed as percent of respondents:
Not always wearing two pairs of chemotherapy gloves (80%) or not even a single pair (15%).
Failure to always wear nonabsorbent gown with closed front and tight-fitting cuffs (42%).
Intravenous (I.V.) tubing primed with antineoplastic drug instead of a non-drug containing liquid by the respondent (6%) or by the pharmacy department (12%).
Potentially contaminated clothing taken home (12%).
Spill or leak of antineoplastic drug during administration (12%).
Lack of hazard awareness training (4%).
Skin contact with antineoplastic drug (4%).
Despite the longstanding availability of authoritative safe handling guidelines (ASHP, NIOSH , ONS, OSHA), recommended exposure controls were not always used. According to NIOSH, this is highly noteworthy considering that there is no safe level of exposure to cancer-causing agents. Reported barriers to using PPE suggest that there is a perception that exposures are inconsequential or so rare that employers or workers feel PPE use is not justified.
The researchers conclude that better risk communication is needed to ensure that employers and employees are fully aware of the hazards and the availability of precautionary measures to minimize exposures. Commitment from all levels in the healthcare organization is essential to adequately protect workers from one of the most toxic classes of chemical agents used in healthcare.
NIOSH is the federal agency that conducts research and makes recommendations for preventing work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths. The findings from this survey are expected to help NIOSH, partners, employers, and healthcare workers better understand current health and safety practices relative to working with hazardous chemical agents, identify gaps in current knowledge about those practices, and, in collaboration with partners, design further research for addressing those gaps.
INFORMATION:
Read the full study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
This release was provided by Nura Sadeghpour at NIOSH's Press Office, (202) 245-0673.
ATTRIBUTION TO THE JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HYGIENE IS REQUESTED IN ALL NEWS COVERAGE.
JOEH is published jointly by the American Industrial Hygiene Association® (AIHA) and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists® (ACGIH). JOEH enhances the knowledge and practice of occupational and environmental hygiene and safety. It provides a written medium for the communication of ideas, methods, processes, and research in the areas of occupational, industrial, and environmental hygiene; exposure assessment; engineering controls; occupational and environmental epidemiology, medicine, and toxicology; ergonomics; and other related disciplines.
Men who consume more alcohol have a greater risk of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, according to a recent study by Moffitt Cancer Center researchers.
HPV is a common sexually transmitted virus, with more than six million new infections in the United States each year. HPV causes genital warts in both men and women and is a contributing factor to a number of different cancers in women, including cervical, vaginal and anal cancers. More recent studies have shown that HPV can also cause penile, anal and oropharyngeal cancer in men. However, there is limited data regarding ...
A snaking, extended filament of solar material currently lies on the front of the sun-- some 1 million miles across from end to end. Filaments are clouds of solar material suspended above the sun by powerful magnetic forces. Though notoriously unstable, filaments can last for days or even weeks.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, which watches the sun 24 hours a day, has observed this gigantic filament for several days as it rotated around with the sun. If straightened out, the filament would reach almost across the whole sun, about 1 million miles or 100 times ...
In response to the rise of drug-resistant pathogens, doctors are routinely cautioned against overprescribing antimicrobials. But when a patient has a confirmed bacterial infection, the advice is to treat aggressively to quash the infection before the bacteria can develop resistance.
A new study questions the accepted wisdom that aggressive treatment with high drug dosages and long durations is always the best way to stem the emergence and spread of resistant pathogens. The review of nearly 70 studies of antimicrobial resistance, which was authored by researchers at Princeton ...
Two NASA satellites captured data on Typhoon Phanfone as it continues to strengthen as it moves through the Northwestern Pacific Ocean.
The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite flew over Typhoon Phanfone on Oct. 2, 2014 at 0939 UTC (5:39 a.m. EDT). The rainfall pattern observed using TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) data showed that Phanfone was much better organized than a day earlier. This precipitation analysis revealed that intensifying typhoon Phanfone had formed a large eye. The heaviest rainfall was shown falling at a ...
NASA's Terra satellite spotted the birth of Tropical Storm Vongfong in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean on Oct. 3. Vongfong is the nineteenth tropical storm of the Northwestern Pacific typhoon season.
The MODIS or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Vongfong on Oct. 3 at 00:30 UTC (Oct. 2 at 8:30 p.m. EDT). At the time of the image, the center of Tropical Storm Vongfong was located just to the northeast of Pohnpei, one of four states in the Federated States of Micronesia. ...
Tropical Storm Simon is following the path of several other tropical storms that formed in the Eastern Pacific Ocean by crawling northward along the western coastline of Mexico. NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured an infrared image of Simon on Oct. 3 that showed the eastern side of the storm over Mexico.
An infrared image taken from NOAA's GOES-West satellite on Oct .3 at 7:45 a.m. EDT showed strong thunderstorms circling Tropical Storm Simon's center and a fragmented band of thunderstorms in Simon's eastern quadrant bringing rainfall to western Mexico. Simon's center ...
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have created a new model to more accurately describe the greenhouse gases likely to be released from Arctic peatlands as they warm. Their findings, based on modeling how oxygen filters through soil, suggest that previous models probably underestimated methane emissions and overrepresented carbon dioxide emissions from these regions.
Peatlands, common in the Arctic, are wetlands filled with dead and decaying organic matter. They are the result of millions of years of plants dying and breaking down ...
It has become common for people who have pets to refer to themselves as "pet parents," but how closely does the relationship between people and their non-human companions mirror the parent-child relationship? A small study from a group of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers makes a contribution to answering this complex question by investigating differences in how important brain structures are activated when women view images of their children and of their own dogs. Their report is being published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
"Pets hold a special ...
West Orange, NJ. October 3, 2014. Stroke researchers have confirmed that damage to the right frontal-subcortical network may cause ipsilateral spatial neglect. Among individuals with ipsilateral neglect, a much greater proportion had frontal subcortical damage than anticipated by the investigators – 83% vs the expected 27%. A difference was also seen in spatial bias, ie, the type of spatial errors among this group tended to be 'where' (perceptual-attentional) rather than 'aiming' (motor-intentional) errors. Ipsilesional Neglect: Behavioral and Anatomical Correlates (doi: ...
A powerful scientific tool for editing the DNA instructions in a genome can now also be applied to RNA, the molecule that translates DNA's genetic instructions into the production of proteins. A team of researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley has demonstrated a means by which the CRISPR/Cas9 protein complex can be programmed to recognize and cleave RNA at sequence-specific target sites. This finding has the potential to transform the study of RNA function by paving the way for direct RNA transcript detection, analysis and manipulation.
A ...
