Biological Monitoring of Onc Nurses

[OccHealthNurs]

I would like to hear from any Oncology Nurses (or Pharmacists) that work in the hospital administering chemotherapy or mixing it. What does your institution do for you as far as biological monitoring? Do you get a yearly physical exam given by your institution, do they draw blood once a year (or more)? How are you monitored. Urine tests?

And have any of you ever been affected adversely by long term exposure? Many thanks.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

None of the above in any of my jobs- 5 years inpatient and 3 years of home care administering chemotherapy. I do not know if they did any of this on the Pharmacy staff that mixed the drugs but I doubt it.

We wore a monitor that was supposed to record if we were exposed to anything radioactive because we injected isotopes for Nuclear Medicine scans on the floor for kids undergoing pre-surgical evaluations for seizures but I never heard of anyone testing positive.

[OccHealthNurs]

Great information KelRN, thank you so much for your response. I have not worked in the hospital that much as an occupational health nurse, so I haven't seen what a lot of institutions do. However, I have never heard of Onc nurses saying they were monitored in any way, and I haven't read articles about it in the literature either. There was some research done in the early days of Occupational Health where and when there were no safeguards and precautions in place for nurses administering chemo, and they found some troubling lab values in the nurses involved. But those were a long time ago. We are just asking the questions at this time to try to find out more about what is being done. Thank you again for responding.

[Buckeye.nurse]

We don't mix our own chemo. It comes up from the pharmacy with tubing attached and pre-primed. All we have to do is connect it to the patient's IV access device. To further protect ourselves we wear chemo gown, double chemo gloves, and use the phaseal connection system. All PPE we wear while hanging chemo, as well as empty bags/tubing goes into yellow bags and a designated trash can.

[msjack]

We had blood drawn once a year by occupational health to monitor for any changes. Like the PP we don't mix our own chemo, it comes mixed from pharmacy with tubing attached and pre primed.