Clinical application of light-proof infusion set
Since there is no unified national implementation standard for light-proof infusion, hospitals at all levels follow their own regulations and thus the clinical use is uneven. Relatively speaking, the larger the hospital, the stricter the medical quality control, and the more patients use light-proof infusion. Patients may refuse to use the light-proof infusion device because of the additional cost or because they do not understand the function of the light-proof infusion device. Zhao Ningmin, Department of Pharmacy, Henan Provincial People’s Hospital
In the process of infusion, there are different requirements for the use of different drugs due to their different nature. For example, certain antitumor drugs, sodium nitroprusside for lowering blood pressure, certain vasodilators, certain water-soluble vitamins, certain anti-infective fluoroquinolones, etc. need to be protected from light for infusion. Light is an important factor affecting the stability of drugs. In order to provide better treatment to patients and to avoid adverse drug reactions as much as possible, it is necessary to use light-proof infusion for certain drugs. Since drug manufacturing processes differ, as do formulations and crystal forms, the need for light-protected infusions should be determined by the drug’s instructions. Many drugs are relatively unstable in aqueous solution and require higher light protection. As an example: milk powder has a longer shelf life than fresh milk, and fresh milk under light conditions is more likely to deteriorate than fresh milk protected from light.
The mechanism of drug decomposition is complex, such as some chemotherapy drugs of anti-tumor due to the specificity of their chemical structure, in the process of drip injection due to the presence of water, can occur ring cleavage, rearrangement, hydrolysis, polymerization, oxidation, isomerization and other more complex reactions, and light can catalyze the process of the above reaction, accelerating the decomposition of drug deterioration.
The light-proof infusion device is made of medical light-proof material. All-black light avoidance is the best, but it is not conducive to clinical observation of the infusion situation. Therefore, the key to solving the problem of light avoidance for infusion is to diminish the light wavelengths that tend to promote drug decomposition as much as possible while ensuring the minimum observation transparency. Yellow light wavelength is close to red light, light quantum energy is smaller, the ability of chemical decomposition of drug solutions is also smaller, so the choice of dark yellow that is brown as an infusion device to avoid light color, general laboratory reagents and drugs need to avoid light are also selected brown bottle storage is precisely this reason. Brown color palette = yellow + orange + black.
Henan Provincial People’s Hospital Clinical Pharmacy Department
Deputy Chief Pharmacist
Zhao Ningmin