Cancer patients receive a number of drugs — chemotherapy, supportive care, and medicines for conditions other than cancer. In a recent study, more than one in four patients on chemotherapy were taking medications that had a risk of drug interaction.
Four hundred chemotherapy patients completed a questionnaire listing the medications they had taken in the past four weeks. Nearly 300 potential drug interactions were identified, ten percent of them with the possibility of causing death, another 80 percent with the risk of serious health problems.
Most potential interactions — 87 percent — involved drugs that were not anti-cancer agents including warfarin, high blood pressure agents, cortisteroids, and anticonvulsants. However, 13 percent involved cancer treatments. Eight percent were actually duplicate prescriptions.
Despite identifying potential risky drug interactions, the study did not go on to find out if the interactions led to serious problems.
Writing in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Rachel P. Riechelmann and her colleagues concluded:
Potential drug interactions were common among cancer patients and most often involved medications to treat comorbid conditions. Duplicate medications were infrequent.
SOURCE: Riechelmann et. al., Journal of the National Cancer Institute,Volume 99, Number8, pp:592-600, April 2007.
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