[The current status and problems associated with outpatient chemotherapy at our hospital]

Administration of outpatient chemotherapy cases at a community-based General Private Hospital such as ours has been increasing year after year. Therefore, we present a current status of cancer chemotherapy at the outpatient department of General Surgery in our hospital and to review the problems and solutions. There were 30 cases where our surgical department administered outpatient chemotherapy in March 2006. The required hospitalization during the chemotherapy enforcement was 2 cases where both of them were due to a progress of primary disease, but not from chemotherapeutic adverse drug reactions. Each department copes and handles outpatient chemotherapy because we do not carry an exclusive department dedicated to treat patients at our hospital. Therefore, various problems will arise along with the therapy. As a community-based General Hospital, we coordinated with relevant public sectors in order to fulfill a lack of human resources, and we found out that it was necessary to build a system that operates smoothly and administers safe outpatient chemotherapy.