A UHPLC-MS/MS-based method for the simultaneous monitoring of eight antiblastic drugs in plasma and urine of exposed healthcare workers.

Exposure of healthcare workers to anticancer drugs requires the combined action of environmental and biological monitoring to assess the effective level of exposure to these chemicals, to improve awareness and to avoid adverse health effects on this category of workers. Cancer chemotherapeutic drugs show different mechanisms of action due to diverse chemical structures; consequently, they differ in hydrophobicity, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. Therefore, the appearance, accumulation and elimination of each of these molecules in body fluids and tissues might be extremely variable; this prompts the need for a rapid and versatile analytical protocol for the biological monitoring of possible exposure of workers involved in the manipulation, administration and disposal of cancer chemotherapeutic drugs.