The lancet oncology
-
Oncology drugs clearly have become a target for pharmaceutical crime. In 2016, falsified oncology drugs ranked fifth in the most commonly falsified drug category among the reports received by the Pharmaceutical Security Institute. Although the prevalence of illicit oncology drugs in the legal supply chains appears to be small, these drugs are difficult to detect, particularly in clinical practice. ⋯ Although countermeasures should firmly tighten supply chain security, there are concerns about how quickly pharmaceutical crime will adapt to these protections. Because patients and health-care professionals have shown a lenient attitude towards purchasing medicines from unreliable sources, measures against the highly accessible illegal medicine supply chain remain necessary. To improve detectability in clinical practice, reporting of ineffectiveness and unusual drug effects as adverse events or adverse drug reactions is essential.
-
The lancet oncology · Apr 2018
ReviewMedication overuse in oncology: current trends and future implications for patients and society.
The high cost of cancer care worldwide is largely attributable to rising drugs prices. Despite their high costs and potential toxic effects, anticancer treatments could be subject to overuse, which is defined as the provision of medical services that are more likely to harm than to benefit a patient. ⋯ Although financial, psychological, or physical harms of medication overuse in cancer could be substantial, there is little published evidence addressing these harms, so their magnitude is unclear. Further research is needed to better quantify medication overuse, understand its implications, and help protect patients and the health-care system from overuse.
-
Although chemotherapy is a well established treatment modality, chemotherapy errors represent a potentially serious risk of patient harm. We reviewed published research from 1980 to 2017 to understand the extent and nature of medication errors in cancer chemotherapy, and to identify effective interventions to help prevent mistakes. Chemotherapy errors occur at a rate of about one to four per 1000 orders, affect at least 1-3% of adult and paediatric oncology patients, and occur at all stages of the medication use process. ⋯ Although the heterogeneity of research methods and measures used in these studies limits our understanding of this issue, the rate of chemotherapy error-related injuries is generally lower than those seen in comparable studies of general medical patients. Although many interventions show promise in reducing chemotherapy errors, most have little empirical support. Additional research is needed to understand and to mitigate the risk of chemotherapy medication errors.