Adherence is Critical
In the past, almost all chemotherapy was delivered intravenously.
Assuming a patient received all scheduled cycles of
chemotherapy within the defined treatment period, providers
could monitor and be assured of adherence with intravenous
therapy. Today the treatment landscape has changed.
When patients receive self-administered oral antineoplastic
medications as part of their treatment regimen, they may
not receive the same intensive teaching and monitoring as
patients receiving intravenous therapy only. Thus, patients
may not receive the same amount of education and monitoring
as patients receiving intravenous therapy.4
Oral chemotherapy is effective only if patients adhere
to their administration schedule. But it can be challenging
for providers to monitor true adherence because the patient
is not taking the drug at the hospital or practice. Clinicians
are further limited by the lack of a gold-standard measurement
for assessing patient adherence.
With relatively few studies on patient adherence to oral
chemotherapy, however, it is difficult to measure the prevalence
of this problem. In developed countries, adherence
rates average around 50 percent in patients with chronic illnesses.
For oncology, published studies reflect a highly variable
adherence rate