Background: Occupational exposure to hazardous drugs occurs in all aspects of anticancer drug handling. Proper recommendations and guidelines should be applied to control and reduce exposure. Objective: To assess pharmacists' knowledge and practice regarding the safe handling of anticancer drugs. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at seven major hospitals in Baghdad City, Iraq, from December 2023 to February 2024. A pre-designed questionnaire was given to pharmacists who handled anticancer drugs in chemotherapy units. The questionnaire comprises sociodemographic data, knowledge of the safe handling of cytotoxic drugs and thoughts about exposure and risk, practices for safely handling cytotoxic drugs, and challenges for safely handling cytotoxic drugs. Results: A total of 126 pharmacists were enrolled in the study. Less than half of the participants (46%) received training on anticancer drugs. While more than a third (42.9%) of the pharmacists were handling more than 100 cytotoxic preparations weekly, the total knowledge score was 7.14, while the total practice score was 73.36, with less than half of the pharmacists having good knowledge (44.44%) or practice (48.41%). Pharmacists who received training had significantly higher total practice scores than those who did not. Pharmacists with more than 100 weekly preparations were more knowledgeable than those with 50–99 preparations. Conclusions: The majority of participating pharmacists had fair to excellent knowledge and practice regarding the safe handling of cytotoxic medications. However, there were some gaps regarding important knowledge and practice issues. To improve knowledge and practices regarding anticancer handling, training is necessary.
Background: preparation of root canals is an important step in root canal treatment. Mechanical instrumentation of root canals cause an irregular layer of debris, known as the smear layer. As a result, several studies reported that preferring the removal of the smear layer. Objective: To study the influence of the energy (100 mJ) of Erbium, Chromium: Yttrium Scandium Gallium Garnet (Er,Cr:YSGG) laser at short pulse duration (60 μs) on smear layer removal of apical third after using Photon induced photoacoustic streaming technique. Materials and methods: Eighteen straight single-rooted mandibular premolars were used. The roots length were uniform to 14mm from the anatomic apex and
... Show MoreThe current paper investigates the effect of cut-out design parameters on load-bearing capacity and buckling behaviour of steel cylindrical shell using a nonlinear finite element analysis in modelling cylinder buckling under longitudinal compressive load. The effect of four geometry design parameters: shell diameter to thickness ratio, cut-out location, orientation, and size were investigated in this study. To enhance the prediction of buckling behaviour, both geometrical and material nonlinearities were considered. An ANSYS APDL code was written and tested by verifying its validity through comparison with former buckling study. The results showed that changing the cut-out location from mid-height of the cylindrical shell towards a
... Show MoreShear wave velocity is an important feature in the seismic exploration that could be utilized in reservoir development strategy and characterization. Its vital applications in petrophysics, seismic, and geomechanics to predict rock elastic and inelastic properties are essential elements of good stability and fracturing orientation, identification of matrix mineral and gas-bearing formations. However, the shear wave velocity that is usually obtained from core analysis which is an expensive and time-consuming process and dipole sonic imager tool is not commonly available in all wells. In this study, a statistical method is presented to predict shear wave velocity from wireline log data. The model concentrated to predict shear wave velocity fr
... Show MoreA rapid and sensitive method for analysis of amino acid hydrolysates of nigella sativa L seed has been developed using O-phthaldialehyde(OPA ) as a pre-column derivatizing agent. OPA reagents in the presence of mercaptoethanol react rapidly with primary amino acids ( less than 60 sec.) to form isindole derivatives which easily separated with good selectivity on ODS column. Resolution of amino acid derivatives is carried out with a methanol gradient in 0.01 maqueous sodium acetate. pH 7.1 . The quantitation of amino acid derivatives is reproducible within an average relative deviation of + 1.4% the linearity for most amino acids were more than 0.9993 with detection limit of 0.2 ppm. 15 amino acid were detected in the analysis of
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