Analysis of pattern of prescription of anti-cancer drugs in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Nigeria

Abstract

Cancer is a leading cause of death all over the world. There are different types of treatment modalities, but over 90% of patients with cancer will require chemotherapy, which carries a lot of discomfort and side effects. Many patients often abandon their treatment as a result of sideeffects. To study the pattern of prescription of anti-cancer drugs in a tertiary care hospital and compare it with the standard. This is very important to prevent unnecessary side effect through inappropriate prescription. The study protocol was approved by the ethics committee. Then an observational retrospective study was conducted for a period of four years at University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Nigeria, using the inclusion criteria. The epidemiological data and details of the prescribed drugs were obtained from the case notes and prescribing sheets. Six hundred and eighty-six prescriptions/case notes between January 2013- December 2016 were retrieved but six hundred and seventy-three were analyzed using statistical package software version 2.0. The age range is 1- above 18 years while the mean age was 45.8 ± 16.0. There were more females (72.3%) than males (27.7%). Male to female ratio was 1.0 to 1.5. Soft tissue sarcoma constitutes the highest percentage (49.0%) of the cancer. The prescription pattern shows combination therapy was the commonest drug prescribed. The prescriptions follow the standard, but a little variation occurs due to inability of many patients to afford expensive drugs such as the targeted drugs. This is in contrast to developed country where national health insurance schemes are available to cater for the patients.