[Outpatient chemotherapy and oncology network : Onco Pays-de-la-Loire experiment]

Many regulatory rules related to home-based care for cancer patients issued during the recent years. More precisely, the French Plan cancer and the December 2004 << arrêté >> aim at << facilitating home-based chemotherapy by injection >> only << within the framework of a network of health in oncology >>, this in order to improve the quality of care and quality of life of patients. In this context, the Onco Pays-de-la-Loire network launched a project with centralised preparations of chemotherapy administred at home. We describe in this study the first results of this experiment. 41 patients have been treated and 224 cytotoxic drugs sended since january 2007 (56 % with trastuzumab, 19 % with gemcitabin, 13 % with methotrexate and 12 % with fluorouracil). No major problem was detected, 1,9 % of the preparations were destroyed. Satisfaction of outpatient healthcare professionals was good. A comparison of estimated costs revealed reductions in costs for outpatient chemotherapy. These first results validate the interest of cancer treatment at home for this kind of patients, and show the importance of nurse and pharmaceutical coordination.