Impact of Pharmacist’s Intervention on clinical outcomes Improvement in Patients with Breast Cancer

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Breast cancer is the most common cancers among women in Egypt. According to the National Cancer Institute at Cairo University (NCI), 31.5% of their cancer cases are breast cancer. Health Related Quality of Life and reduction of side effects are considered important goals in the treatment of cancer patients. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of clinical pharmacist’s intervention on the improvement of clinical outcomes of patient with breast cancer. Patients and Methods: The study was carried out on a group of 60 breast cancer women who were subjected to a thorough history taking, clinical pharmacist’s intervention using patient education and counseling tools, medication therapy management and assessment of treatment related adverse events prior to each cycle and at the end of the treatment. In addition, assessment of quality of life (QOL) was done at the base line and at the end of treatment to evaluate the effect of the pharmacist’s interventions. Results: The current study has shown that the clinical pharmacist interventions were associated with significant reduction in toxicity grades of patients e.g anaemia where the percentage of patients of grade 2 decreased from (17%) to (1.7%), while patients having neutropenia grade 4 decreased from (10%) to (0%), moreover (5%) of patients had grade 4 nausea/vomiting, while after pharmacist intervention became (0%). Regarding patients’ quality of life, results showed improvement of mean±SD of most of the QOL scales such as body image from (25.3±20.2) to (61.6±16.8), systematic therapy side effects decreased from (80.8±19.53) to (42.8 ±16.8), breast symptoms decreased from (79.9±18.6) to (49.8±82.4), all with (p<0.001). Conclusion: Most treatments of breast cancer although being beneficial also result in toxicities, primarily anemia, neutropenia, nausea and pain. These side-effects adversely impact the patient QOL and can lead to treatment discontinuation. Clinical pharmacist intervention resulted in beneficial clinical outcomes in patients with breast cancer such as the reduction of treatment related side effects and the improvement of patients QOL.