A Cost Saving and Waste Minimization Study About Handling of the Antineoplastic Agents

As a cancer treatment option, chemotherapy costs make up a large part of the budgets of social insurance foundations and related expenditures are increasing continuously annually. Cost saving and waste minimizing strategies are required to reduce the expenditures in the field of oncology. The study aimed to reduce the amount of wasted antineoplastic drugs and medical supply consumption.

The study explains why vials with a larger size and drugs in liquid form should be preferred over various smaller sizes and powder forms of antineoplastic preparations.

Amounts of drug wastage, vial adaptor, and transfer set consumption data were recorded regularly for a period of seven months. The average vial adaptor consumption per patient in the last three months decreased from 5 to 3.3. The preference of liquid forms as much as possible instead of powder forms, which has a shorter stability time after dilution, and the choice of larger package sizes of frequently used drugs decreased vial adaptor consumption. Potential savings were calculated as around 31.660 USD annually. Costs of total wasted doses were 8.699.87 USD, and the whole antineoplastic drug consumption was 515.500 USD during the study. A decrease of 0.58 USD was observed per capita when the first and last three-month periods were compared in terms of waste costs.

These values indicate that the reduction of wasted drugs have potential annual savings of 3.375 USD. It is shown that total potential savings of 35.000 USD could be made per year. By implementing the same principles in all hospitals in Turkey, approximately 2.8 million USD could be made annually. The pharmaceutical industry and hospital pharmacists have important responsibilities in this issue.