Hospital pharmacist Dr. Roelof van Leeuwen, who works for the Erasmus MC Cancer Institute’s Department of Pharmacy and Internal Oncology, has a mission. He wants to keep healthcare affordable and work manageable for healthcare professionals. The projects he is working on with other specialists, nurses and pharmacist assistants will help. The patients themselves play a crucial role. We highlight three initiatives.
Connect & Go Immunotherapy
Many cancer patients come to day treatment regularly for an infusion of immunotherapy, also known as immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). Sometimes they sit for hours waiting for the drip to run out. This will change.
The patient who is able to do this receives his therapy in an elastomer pump. The pump is connected to the day care unit and the patient carries it around the unit in a small bag. He or she can go for coffee with a loved one or go on a trip. When the pump is empty, the patient returns to the ward to be disconnected.
Stop wasting unused tablets
It has been a major annoyance for patients, doctors and pharmacists for years. The doctor prescribes expensive tablets for a certain period of time, but the course is stopped halfway through. Unused cancer drugs end up in the trash.
“Because of the legislation, it is not allowed to take back unused medicines,” says the hospital pharmacist. “After all, there’s no guarantee that the drug has been stored the right way, at the right temperature.” But what does the research show? The vast majority of patients (98.9%) keep their pills neatly as prescribed.
Fewer drugs, just as effective and safe
Van Leeuwen and fellow oncologists were already working to dose chemotherapy and immunotherapy as accurately as possible. When a cancer therapy comes to market, the drug company often recommends a high dose to ensure that the treatment is effective for as large a group as possible, Van Leeuwen knows.
“In many patients this can easily be reduced by a few milligrams.” And so Van Leeuwen and his colleagues set about fine-tuning the dosages. ‘The focus is on innovative, but also expensive, therapies. We had already studied that immunotherapy with pembrolizumab is just as effective if you reduce the dose by about 20%,” he says.
By: National Care Guide
