Potential drug interactions and duplicate prescriptions among ambulatory cancer patients: a prevalence study using an advanced screening method

BMC Cancer

Study Protocol

Eleonora L Swart¹  Roelof WF van Leeuwen²  Jacqueline G Hugtenburg³  Frits A Boom⁴  Martin S Schuitenmaker⁴ 

[1] Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacy, VU University medical center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacy, VU University medical center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Zaans Medical Center, Zaandam, The Netherlands;Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacy, VU University medical center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University medical center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Zaans Medical Center, Zaandam, The Netherlands;

关键词: Drug Interaction;    Anticancer Drug;    Potential Drug Interaction;    Electronic Database PubMed;    Ambulatory Cancer Patient;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2407-10-679

 received in 2010-03-10, accepted in 2010-12-13,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe pharmacotherapeutic treatment of patients with cancer is generally associated with multiple side-effects. Drug interactions and duplicate prescriptions between anti-cancer drugs or interactions with medication to treat comorbidity can reinforce or intensify side-effects.The aim of the present study is to gain more insight into the prevalence of drug interactions and duplicate prescriptions among patients being treated in the outpatient day care departments for oncology and hematological illnesses. For the first time the prevalence of drug interactions with OTC-drugs in cancer patients will be studied. Possible risk factors for the occurrence of these drug-related problems will also be studied.Methods/DesignA multicenter cross-sectional observational study of the epidemiology of drug interactions and duplicate prescriptions is performed among all oncology and hemato-oncology patients treated with systemic anti-cancer drugs at the oncology and hematology outpatient day care department of the VU University medical center and the Zaans Medical Center.DiscussionIn this article the prevalence of potential drug interactions in outpatient day-care patients treated with anti-cancer agents is studied using a novel more extensive screening method. If this study shows a high prevalence of drug interactions clinical pharmacists and oncologists must collaborate to develop a pharmaceutical screening programme, including an automated electronic warning system, to support drug prescribing for ambulatory cancer patient. This programme could minimize the occurrence of drug related problems such as drug interactions and duplicate prescriptions, thereby increasing quality of life.Trial registrationThis study is registered, number NTR2238.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© van Leeuwen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.