Bioanalytical methods for cytostatic therapeutic drug monitoring and occupational exposure assessment

Chemotherapy is the use of chemical substances to treat cancer. However, traditional chemotherapeutic agents do not show sufficient specificity for the cancer cells, which means that also healthy cells are strongly affected by these treatments. In parallel, manufacturers and health-care workers are continuously exposed to these cytostatic drugs through the usual procedures. Thus, there is a need to control the real internal dose received by this sector. Bioanalytical techniques may show great potential as tools for establishing a more personalized treatment procedure since therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) could support clinicians on making and establishing decisions adapted to each patient. Similarly, these bioanalytical procedures may be implemented on those occupational sectors in which risk for exposure to these hazardous drugs exists. In this review, we present the overall situation in that respect and provide information of the bioanalytical techniques reported up to date for the most important cytostatic families. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.