The PhaSeal® system: impact of its use on workplace contamination and duration of chemotherapy preparation.

PURPOSE: The primary objective of this study was to compare the levels of environmental contamination before and after the introduction of PhaSeal® (closed-system drug transfer device) in two hospital pharmacies. Our secondary objective was to assess the impact of the device on the duration of drug preparation compared to procedures involving the use of needles and syringes. METHODS: The study involved two French hospitals, which prepared antineoplastic chemotherapy using a biological safety cabinet and an isolator. Five skilled pharmacy technicians at each hospital prepared a total of 100 chemotherapy preparations using the standard procedure and 100 using the PhaSeal® system. To control for possible contamination occurring in the course of the procedure, we used fluorescein which becomes fluorescent when exposed to UV light. To reply the second objective, we timed the duration of the different steps of the manipulation. RESULTS: Our findings showed a major reduction in the contamination of the work environment when using the PhaSeal® system for drug preparation. Reduction rates higher than 93% were obtained, whatever the type of protection used. On the duration of preparation, our results indicate that this duration would be approximately 1 h longer for the preparation of 100 samples. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, this study clearly establishes the benefit of using PhaSeal® for protecting the staff members who work with hazardous agents. It also indicates that the duration of drug preparation is not impacted by the use of the system.

Incidence and risk factors of anemia in patients with early breast cancer treated by adjuvant chemotherapy.

BACKGROUND: The study's objective was to assess the predictive factors of anemia induced by chemotherapy in early breast cancer patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients treated by adjuvant or neo-adjuvant anthracyclin-based regimens with or without taxanes between 1998 and 2006 in a French university hospital were studied. Chemotherapy included. Anemia was defined as a hemoglobin (Hb) concentration lower than 12 g/dL. Multivariate analysis by logistic regression was used to search for baseline risk factors linked to the occurrence of anemia. RESULTS: Among 378 patients, anemia was observed in 64% of cases. The occurrence of anemia was significantly related to 6 risk factors: exposure to taxanes (HR 11.5, 95% CI, 2.5-52.6), high dose of anthracyclin (epirubicin 100 mg/m²)(HR 4.3; 95% CI, 2.8-8), Hb at baseline < 13.5 g/d (HR 4.3; 95% CI, 2.6-7.1), mastectomy (HR 2.5; 95% CI, 1.4-3.3), age >60 (HR 2.5; 95% CI, 1.4-5) years old (HR 2.5; 95% CI, 1.4-5) and Body Mass Index (BMI) ≤ 25 kg/m² (HR 1.7; 95% CI, 1.0-2.8). CONCLUSION: Taking into account the following factors: type of chemotherapy, BMI, age, Hb at baseline should allow a better identification of patients at risk of anemia.

Hospital costs of renal transplant management.

Renal transplantation is considered to be a cost-effective therapy, but hospital medical costs are not accurately known. The aim of this work was to evaluate the costs of hospital stay for renal transplantation. This retrospective study included all patients who underwent renal transplantation between January 1, 2004, and December 31, 2005, in our University hospital. The incurred costs were determined using our center's analytical accounting (AA). The mean local cost was then compared with the median national cost of hospitalization for renal transplantation, based on a sample of participating centers contributing to the National Cost Scale (NCS) per homogenous diagnosis-related group (DRG). These mean costs were weighed against the financing obtained by national rates of the case-mix based payment system (termed T2A). Data were collected from 77 patients. Their mean length of stay was 19.4 days. AA determined the cost of management to be euro14,100 per patient. National economic approaches were significantly higher: euro16,389 for NCS and euro17,369 for national rates. Thus, the specific DRG rate (case mix index) of renal transplantation covers the expenses incurred by our center. These results are rather interesting; however, it is unlike those obtained for the management of other diseases such as acute myeloid leukemia, where T2A underestimates the actual cost by 2-4 times. Last, the hospital budget and T2A must be considered as a whole. The fact that DRGs with favorable and unfavorable pricing balance out should be taken into account.