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Patients Require Assistance Navigating Complicated Cancer Drugs

TOP - Daily

Doses may be skipped due to side effects, which can result in ineffective treatment

As cancer treatments emerge in pill form, patients meet many challenges when administering their own chemotherapy outside the supervised cancer clinic environment.

According to a new Michigan State University (SMU) study led by Sandra Spoelstra, an MSU assistant professor of nursing, chemotherapy pills can target specific cancers better than some traditional intravenous drugs, but they can also be difficult for patients to take.

“Prescriptions for some oral pills have complex instructions,” she said. “Some of them require patients to take pills several times a day or cycle their doses, taking one pill a day for three weeks, then stopping for a week before starting again. And some patients take two types of pills to treat their cancer or have multiple medications for other chronic conditions. It can be very complicated.”

Moreover, common side effects such as severe nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, skin reactions, and pain can lead some patients to skip doses, which may result in ineffective cancer treatment.

According to the study, more than 40% of participating patients took too many pills or missed doses. Poor adherence was more likely among those with complex treatment regimens.

For the study, published in the journal Cancer Nursing, the researchers randomly assigned the patients to 1 of 3 groups:

  • Group 1 received help only from an MSU-developed automated calling system designed to determine whether patients were following their prescriptions and to assist them in monitoring and managing symptoms
  • Group 2 received the automated calls plus follow-up calls from nurses with strategies for adhering to pill regimens
  • Group 3 received automated calls along with nurse advice on both following their regimen and managing side effect symptoms

At the end of the study, patients in all 3 groups reported less severe symptoms. Researchers discovered that the automated calls alone were just as effective as when combined with nursing advice. Hence, the automated system could be a simple and inexpensive way to help some patients take their drugs properly, Spoelstra said.

Source: Michigan State University.