Background Chemotherapy prescriptions validation by the oncology pharmacist often require interventions to optimise some aspects of the treatment, usually related to the safety and effectiveness of antineoplastic agents.

Purpose Our pharmacy department has developed an initiative to register these interventions, in order to characterise possible areas of improvement in the prescription validation process.

Material and methods During a period of 2 months, we created a database collecting data from the interventions made, which included the following information: date of intervention, medical record number, drug involved, reason/type of intervention and result of the intervention (accepted/not accepted). Sociodemographic, clinical and laboratory data were obtained from medical records. Statistical analysis of the results was performed using Microsoft Excel.

Results 44 interventions (43 accepted) were recorded. The department in which more interventions were recorded was medical oncology (64%), followed by haematology (29%), paediatrics (4.8%) and radiotherapy oncology (2.4%). Median age of the patients included in the database was 58.5 years (2–87), and 72% of patients were women. The most common reasons for intervention were due to ‘prescribing errors’ (47.7%), ‘pharmacotherapeutic recommendations’ (22.7%), ‘consultations/requests for information’ (15.9%), ‘adverse events’ (6.8%) and some minor reasons grouped into the category ‘others’ (6.8%). The most common types of intervention were ‘dose modification due to an adverse event (AE)’ (34%) and ‘resolution of consultations regarding prescription/medication administration’ (18%). The next types of interventions by frequency were ‘treatment recommendations’ (9.1%) and dose adjustments based on renal function’ (6.81%). Less common intervention types (4.5%) were: ‘changes in prescription’, ‘dose adjustments based on an AE’, ‘dose adjustments based on pharmacotherapeutic recommendations’, ‘changes in route of administration’ and ‘changes in dosing schedule’. Finally, type of interventions such as ‘changes in the regimen of administration’, ‘treatment interruption’ or ‘pharmaceutical compounding’ were reported in 2.3% of cases.

Conclusion Oncology pharmacist participation in the patient care multidisciplinary team is essential, as is clear from the high rate of acceptance of our interventions. One of the most important aspects of pharmaceutical validation is to identify errors in the prescription and medication administration process, as well as participation in the individualisation of patient therapy through pharmacotherapeutic recommendations, ensuring the effectiveness and safety of the treatment.

No conflict of interest.