Exposure to Hazardous Medicinal Products (e.g., cytostatic or antineoplastic drugs, antivirals, vaccines, immunosuppressants) causes thousands of additional deaths from cancer and tens of thousands more miscarriages, fertility problems and congenital disabilities each year.
Workers in the pharmaceutical industry, as well as in hospitals or other healthcare settings (from the reception staff, through compounding and administration professionals, to the waste handling personnel) are daily exposed to these hazardous substances over a working lifetime. The current trend of home therapy (oral and ready-to-use medicines) has contributed to the diffusion of the problem by posing all individuals, who enter in contact with contaminated surfaces, clothing items, and patient excreta, at risk of exposure: the family of patients, caregivers, friends/visitors, and even cleaners and housekeepers. Besides that, the continuous release of residual amounts of Hazardous Medicinal Products into the sewage system (through patients’ excreta or improper disposal) has led to their entrance and accumulation in the environment, particularly in the water bodies, constituting a serious risk to the ecosystems and the health of the public in general.
The research activities at this laboratory are focused on five main objectives:
-the development and validation of high-resolution analytical methodologies for the multiresidue analysis of Hazardous Medicinal Products in environmental (e.g., water), occupational (e.g., surfaces and indoor air), and human (urine and blood) matrices;
-the identification of potential sources of Hazardous Medicinal Products’ contamination and of exposure risks in the occupational environment;
-the analysis of the mobility of Hazardous Medicinal Products in the environment (air-water-soil compartments);
-the assessment of the risks (to humans and aquatic organisms) from exposure to Hazardous Medicinal Products by integrating environmental, biological and toxicological data;
-the proposal of risk mitigation actions, from the most fundamental strategies (e.g., worker/caregiver training for the safe handling of Hazardous Medicinal Products) to advanced engineering approaches (e.g., Advanced Oxidation Processes and membrane technologies).
