School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, United States International University-Africa, Nairobi, Kenya.
Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia.
J Oncol Pharm Pract. 2021 Jan;27(1):88-98. doi: 10.1177/1078155220914710. Epub 2020 Apr 6.
Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer deaths among women worldwide. If untreated and undetected at the early stage, it causes death by spreading to distant organs. Despite various studies suggesting the high prevalence of drug-related problems among cancer patients, there was a paucity of data regarding the problems among breast cancer patients in our setting. Hence, this study was aimed to assess the drug-related problems among patients with breast cancer at the Oncology Unit of the University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital.
A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted at the Oncology Unit of the University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital. The data were collected by retrospective reviewing medical records of 107 breast cancer patients. The data entry and analysis were done using SPSS version 20.0 statistical software. Descriptive statistics such as percent and frequency were used to summarize categorical variables of patients' characteristics. Univariable and multivariable binary logistic regression analyses were used to investigate the potential predictors of drug-related problems. A p-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
A total of 203 drug-related problems were identified from 76 breast cancer patients, translating to a prevalence of 71.03%. Among the drug-related problems identified, adverse drug reaction (48.6%), need for additional drug therapy (45.8%), and non-adherence (32.7%) were the most prevalent. In the multivariable analysis, breast cancer patients who had concurrent co-morbidities were almost three times (AOR = 2.97, p = 0.035) more likely to experience drug-related problems as compared to those patients without co-morbidity. Moreover, those patients who had been treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapeutic regimens were 0.34 times less likely (crude odd ratio = 0.34, p = 0.023) to have drug-related problems as compared to patients treated with adjuvant chemotherapy regimens.
The prevalence of drug-related problems was high in our setting. Adverse drug reactions, the need for additional drug therapy, and non-adherence were the most frequently occurring drug-related problems in the study setting. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy and the presence of co-morbidities were significant predictors of drug-related problems among breast cancer patients.
乳腺癌是全球最常见的癌症，也是女性癌症死亡的主要原因。如果在早期未得到治疗和检测，它会通过扩散到远处器官而导致死亡。尽管有各种研究表明癌症患者中药物相关问题的高发率，但在我们的环境中，关于乳腺癌患者药物相关问题的数据却很少。因此，本研究旨在评估在贡德尔大学综合专科医院肿瘤病房的乳腺癌患者中的药物相关问题。
这是一项在贡德尔大学综合专科医院肿瘤病房进行的回顾性横断面研究。通过回顾性查阅 107 例乳腺癌患者的病历来收集数据。数据录入和分析使用了 SPSS 版本 20.0 统计软件。使用百分比和频率等描述性统计方法来总结患者特征的分类变量。使用单变量和多变量二元逻辑回归分析来研究药物相关问题的潜在预测因素。p 值<0.05 被认为具有统计学意义。
从 76 例乳腺癌患者中确定了 203 个药物相关问题，患病率为 71.03%。在所确定的药物相关问题中，最常见的是药物不良反应（48.6%）、需要额外药物治疗（45.8%）和不依从（32.7%）。在多变量分析中，与没有合并症的患者相比，同时患有合并症的乳腺癌患者发生药物相关问题的可能性几乎高出三倍（优势比=2.97，p=0.035）。此外，与接受辅助化疗方案治疗的患者相比，接受新辅助化疗方案治疗的患者发生药物相关问题的可能性低 0.34 倍（粗比值比=0.34，p=0.023）。
在我们的环境中，药物相关问题的患病率很高。药物不良反应、需要额外药物治疗和不依从是研究环境中最常见的药物相关问题。新辅助化疗和合并症的存在是乳腺癌患者药物相关问题的重要预测因素。
