Does Your Centre Have an — Oncology Admixture Unit?

CDSCO and the Pharmacy Council of India set standards for hospital pharmacy practice, and NABH accreditation includes pharmacy requirements that cover sterile preparation. In practice, the level of specificity in requirements varies by facility type and accreditation status. Rather than relying on whether a regulation mandates it, the more useful question is to ask the centre directly whether they have a dedicated unit and to ask them to describe how it operates.

A biological safety cabinet is a sealed, filtered enclosure used to prepare injectable drugs. For chemotherapy it does two things: it filters the air surrounding the drug during preparation to prevent contamination, and it protects the person preparing it from inhaling or absorbing hazardous drug particles. ASHP guidelines specify enclosed preparation as the standard for hazardous drug compounding. Preparing chemotherapy in open air exposes both the drug and the staff to avoidable risk.

No system eliminates errors entirely, which is precisely why dedicated units build in structured double-checks. An independent pharmacist calculation, a check before the bag leaves the pharmacy, and a second check before the drug reaches you are three separate points where an error can be caught. Without those layers, catching an error depends more on the individual clinician in the moment. If you want to understand the specific error-checking process at your centre, that is a direct and reasonable question to ask before you start.

It depends on the standards that outside pharmacy meets. A licensed compounding pharmacy operating under proper conditions — sealed cabinets, pharmacist oversight, verified labelling — can meet the same standard as an in-house unit. What matters more than location is whether those conditions are in place, and whether your treating team has direct contact with the pharmacy if a dose needs to change at short notice. An off-site supplier with no immediate clinical link is a meaningfully different arrangement.

Chemotherapy at CION centres is administered as day care, and pharmacy preparation is part of the clinical process at each centre. If you want to understand the specific setup at the centre nearest to you — who prepares the drugs, what equipment is used, and how doses are verified — that is a question you can ask directly when you call or at your first appointment. Any centre should be able to describe its pharmacy process clearly and without hesitation.

Day care means you receive your infusion without being admitted to hospital overnight. The pharmacy preparation process is the same regardless of whether you are an inpatient or day care patient — each bag is prepared individually for you before your appointment, calculated from your current measurements. What changes is the setting: your infusion is given in a dedicated day care area and completed within a few hours, after which you go home. Most standard regimens are suitable for day care delivery.