Chemotherapy is considered the most extensively used modality in the current management of adult oncology patients. In some cases it is given in combination with other treatment modalities such as radiotherapy, surgery, hormonal and targeted therapy. The purpose of this study was to assess the aspects of chemotherapy service in the clinical oncology department Alexandria university hospital, to come up with recommendations and a chemotherapy checklist to facilitate the chemotherapy process.
Patients and methods
This was a prospective observational study conducted on 300 adult patients seen from August 2019 to February 2020.The patients' demographic data, clinical details and chemotherapy data were collected and analyzed using SPSS version 2.
Results
The median age was 54 years old with a range of 17-83 years. 71.3% of the patients were overweight& obese. Breast cancer accounted for 24.3% of the cases, ovarian(6.7%) and colon/lung cancer (5.7%) each. Adriamycin /cyclophosphamide followed by Taxol was the most commonly used regimen (17.3%), followed by Paclitaxel/Carboplatin (13%) and Gemcitabine/Cisplatin(7%). Majority of the patients were on outpatient chemotherapy (77%) and 23% were inpatients. A small percentage of patients (5.7%) received target therapy. 82% of patients were on intravenous chemotherapy and 6.3% on oral chemotherapy. 100% of the patients gave verbal consent before the start of treatment.21% of the patients had dose modifications during their treatment cycle due to hematological toxicity (17.3%), neurological toxicity (3%) and renal impairment (1%).