Oral Chemotherapy Needs Guidelines/article

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LONDON (Reuters) - Clear, standardized guidelines are needed for

giving oral chemotherapy drugs to iron out inconsistencies in how

patients are given the drugs and monitored, researchers said on Friday.

A survey of 42

National Cancer Institute-designated treatment centers in the United

States revealed that while oral chemotherapy drugs were widely

prescribed there were variations in the way they were prescribed,

coordinated and monitored.

Ten of the centers that responded reported at least one serious

adverse event linked to oral chemotherapy in the past year and 13 had

a serious near miss. No details were given.

" The growing availability of effective oral chemotherapy, especially

the new class of targeted biologic therapies, is one of the wonderful

advances in cancer care, as it has given cancer patients unprecedented

convenience compared to intravenous infusion therapy, " said Dr

Lawrence Shulman, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston,

Massachusetts.

" However, these findings underline the importance of forging a

consensus in the oncology field on standardized safeguards and

practices for prescribing and monitoring the use of these drugs, " he

added in a statement.

The survey conducted by the institute and published online by the

British Medical Journal revealed inconsistencies in prescribing the

treatment and recording the dosage.

Many centers had no formal system for monitoring patients taking the

drugs which are becoming increasingly popular internationally.

" Given how quickly oral chemotherapies have become standard care for a

growing number of cancers, we were not surprised to find variations in

how organizations prescribe and monitor the use of these agents, " said

Dr Saul Weingart, the president of patient safety at Dana-Farber.

" It is surprising, however, that few of the safeguards used with

infusion chemotherapy have been adopted for oral chemotherapy. "