Practicing and evaluating clinical pharmacy in oncology: Where are we now? A scoping review

Clinical pharmacy is a discipline structured around multiple activities whose objective is to secure patient care. Among all the specialties where it can be applied, oncology is a field of choice. More and more studies are being conducted on the impact of this activity, but their methodology and results seem at first sight very heterogeneous.

The objective of this literature review was to describe the clinical oncology pharmacy activities found in the literature, and analyze the methodology used and the outcomes measured by the authors for their evaluation.

This literature review was based on the PRISMA-ScR criteria. The Embase, CINAHL, Google Scholar, and PsycINFO databases were searched. All studies reporting the evaluation of hospital-based clinical pharmacy activity in cancer patients were included based on a previously validated search equation. The search was conducted until the end of 2020. The quality of all studies was assessed using the MMAT.

Of the 2521 results of the initial query, 93 were selected for complete review. The main interventions implemented were pharmaceutical analysis as well as pharmaceutical interviews. The indicators assessed most often were the number of pharmaceutical interventions as well as treatment-related problems. The overall quality assessment score was 55%.

Clinical pharmacy activity in oncology still lacks robust studies, whether methodologically or of the measured indicator. Patient-centered impact indicators are still too rare. This area of research should focus on the homogenization of indicators and their relevance.