Investigation into the Establishment of Indicators for Pharmaceutical Intervention in Cancer Pharmacotherapy

The present study was conducted to establish pharmaceutical intervention guidelines to enable hospital pharmacists to provide optimal pharmacotherapy to cancer patients. Many patients who use oral anticancer agents showed favorable drug compliance but insufficient drug adherence. It was demonstrated that in order to improve drug adherence, it is important to conduct interventions tailored to the patients' conditions so as to encourage interest in their medications, as well as to gain their understanding on the necessity and the side effects of their medications. In adjuvant chemotherapy with tegafur/gimeracil/oteracil potassium (S-1) following surgery for stomach cancer, a serum albumin value <3.5 g/dL and a creatinine clearance value <80 mL/min were found to significantly affect S-1 dose reduction or termination of the S-1 intake due to side effects. Furthermore, patients for whom treatment was discontinued or dosage was reduced demonstrated a large reduction in body mass index. When adding insulin to an at-home high-calorie infusion, the insulin retention rate decreased when the number of grams of sugar level per 1 g of sodium bisulfite in the infusion (G/g) was ≤364.6, whereas the insulin retention rate did not decrease when G/g was ≤466.0. Our findings in the present study can serve as highly useful guidelines when pharmacists working in clinical settings conduct pharmaceutical interventions in pharmacotherapy for cancer.