Abstract

Background: Breast cancer (BC) is an emerging health issue not only for the developed nation but also for developing countries and very few literatures are available on drug utilization evaluation in patients with BC.

Objective: To examine the utilization pattern of anti-cancer agents in patients with BC in an Indian oncology setup.

Setting: The oncology department of Bharat Cancer Hospital in the western part of India.

Methods: In a descriptive-observational study treatment orders of patients on chemotherapy for BC were reviewed and the treatment pattern was assessed. Cancer patients who were above 18 years and are on chemotherapy along with supportive care medications were enrolled.

Main outcome measure: The most frequently used anti-neoplastic and supportive care agents, as a percentage of treatment.

Results: A total of 201 patients fulfilling inclusion criteria were enrolled in the study. The majority of the enrolled patients were in the age group of 50 - 69 (54.7%) and females (100%). The family history was found insignificant as a risk factor for the development of BC. The most common types of BC were ductal infiltrating (46.3%), ductal invasive (35.8%) and metastatic (9.0%) and most of them were in stage III (53.2%) and II (25.9%). Amongst them, 18.4% and 16.4% of patients were suffering from oestrogen and progesterone positive tumors respectively whereas 6.5% was HER2 positive. Tamoxifen and anastrozole or letrozole were prescribed in oestrogen and progesterone positive BC respectively. Adjuvant chemotherapy (78.1%) followed by Neo-adjuvant chemotherapy (16.9%) were frequently prescribed. Amongst all anti-neoplastic agents prescribed cyclophosphamide (92.0%) was highly prescribed followed by doxorubicin (79.1%) and fluorouracil (37.8%). Dexamethasone (61.2%), ondansetron (50.8%), palonosetron (32.8%), pantoprazole (25.4%), and peg-filgrastim (16.9%) were commonly prescribed supportive care medications.

Conclusion: This study has shown that the majority of BC patients received alkylating agents followed by anthracycline derivatives and taxanes. Moreover, supportive care agents such as dexamethasone, ondansetron, and pantoprazole were administered in the majority of the patients along with peg-filgrastim or filgrastim to minimize chemotherapy induce toxicities.

Keywords: Breast Cancer; Chemotherapy; Prescribing patterns; Supportive Care

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Citation

Citation: Avinash Khadela.,et al. “Assessment of Prescribing Pattern of Anti-Cancer Agents in Breast Cancer Patients at West Indian Oncology Hospital". Acta Scientific Cancer Biology 4.8 (2020): 19-26.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Avinash Khadela.,et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.