Oral anticancer drugs are an increasingly prescribed form of treatment. However, studies found that 10 percent to 20 percent of patients never received the prescription, and New York-based researchers set out to discover why.
Researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Columbia University Irving Medical Center, both based in New York City, followed 1,024 patients at an urban academic medical center who received oral anticancer drug prescriptions from Jan. 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2019. Their study was published in JAMA Network Open.
The study found the top reasons for not receiving a prescription were:
- Clinician-directed change in decision-making — 30 percent
- Clinical deterioration — 18 percent
- Patient-directed change — 16 percent
- Financial access — 13 percent
- Transfer of care — 12 percent
- Loss to follow-up — 6 percent