Cancer risk of immunosuppressants in manufacturing

During the chemical and pharmaceutical production of active pharmaceutical substances which are intended for immunosuppressive therapy, the employees may be exposed to these substances via inhalation. Immunosuppressants are linked to development of certain types of cancers e.g., lymphoma or skin cancer in transplant patients. The development of these cancers in patients is linked to the level of immunosuppression needed for transplantation in order to avoid organ rejection. Below these levels, with the immune system functioning uninhibited, cancer is unlikely to develop. An internal workshop was conducted to compare several pharmaceutical substances with the intrinsic property to cause immunosuppression, with the attempt to define the risk of healthy employees to develop cancer due to exposure to immunosuppressive substance at work and to determine the appropriate hazard classification for regulatory purposes. Data are discussed with emphasis on cyclosporine to reason the dose-response relationship and the safe level for occupational exposure. Our review indicates that if the exposure to cyclosporine at the workplace is below the threshold necessary to induce immunosuppression, the risk to develop cancer is negligible. Non-mutagenic immunosuppressants do not contribute to malignancies in occupational setting if their air concentrations do not exceed the immunosuppressive threshold limited with occupational exposure limits (OELs), which is for cyclosporine 17.5μg/m(3).