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A scarcity of data exists evaluating the prevalence of patient self-care as add-on therapy to established chemotherapeutic protocols.
Objectives:
This study aims to identify patient groups that are at risk of self-administering Complementary/Alternative Medicine (CAM) that can potentially interact. This could help in development of a triage protocol to direct patient education and time to those at risk to more proactively avoid use of medications that could potentially interact.
Study Design:
Single-center, retrospective, non-interventional, IRB approved study.
Methods:
Inclusion criteria were those receiving chemotherapy from January 2014 – October 2015. Exclusion criteria included patients younger than 18 years and those receiving chemotherapy for reasons other than cancer treatment. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics to identify existing relationships between parameters such as baseline characteristics, diagnoses, and CAM-use.
Results:
Forty-three out of 94 patients studied had recorded CAM-use. A total of 5 out of 94 patients evaluated were taking interacting CAM. CAM was used in 22 female patients and 20 male patients. Four of 5 interactions found were in the 43 total female patients with recorded CAM-use. Each patient that was recorded as taking some sort of CAM used multiple agents, as 84 supplements/herbal products were taken out of the 43 that used CAM. Fifteen patients were taking herbal therapy and 26 took vitamins.
Conclusions:
Many patients taking CAM did not have significant interactions. Almost half of the patients analyzed used CAM showing the prevalence of this therapy among this population. The top 3 CAM included multivitamins, B vitamins and Magnesium supplementation. 6.4% interact with concomitant chemotherapy. Though there were fewer females included, more interactions were seen. Larger studies are needed comparing disease outcomes and survivability in those that take CAM compared with traditional treatment.