The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and USP recently hosted a joint webinar on the NIOSH List of Hazardous Drugs in Healthcare Settings, 2024. The webinar went through the changes to the list since its initial publication in 2016. Twenty-five drugs were added to the list and seven removed in this update. The removals from the list included liraglutide and pertuzumab (more details on their removal available here), as well as formatting changes and consolidation of tables within the list document. When NIOSH removes a drug from the list, the notification of the removal is posted on the NIOSH website.
Other changes include reformatting that resulted in movement of several drugs onto Table 1 of the list, which now includes drugs that have manufacturer's special handling information in the package insert and/or meet the NIOSH definition of a hazardous drug and one or more of these criteria: (1) Are classified by the National Toxicology Program as "known to be a human carcinogen" and (2) Are classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as Group 1 "carcinogenic to humans" or Group 2A "probably carcinogenic to humans."
Previously, in the 2016 list, all Table 1 drugs were antineoplastic drugs. In this update, not all Table 1 drugs are antineoplastic. Table 2 now contains drugs that meet one or more of the criteria in the NIOSH definition of a hazardous drug and: (1) Do not have MSHI, (2) Are not classified by the NTP as "known to be a human carcinogen," and (3) Are not classified by the IARC as Group 1 "carcinogenic to humans" or Group 2A "probably carcinogenic to humans." Some of these drugs may also have adverse developmental and/or reproductive effects.
