Proper Use of Anti-tumor Drugs Based on Patient Protocol Sheets at Chugoku Rosai General Hospital

Medical errors in cancer chemotherapy cause serious harm to patients. As pharmacists, we have to be actively involved in ensuring that anti-tumor drugs used in chemotherapy are used properly. In our hospital, doctors in charge of chemotherapy have been obliged to submit patient protocol sheets to the Department of Pharmacy since October 2002. Up to the end of September 2003, a total of 159 patient protocol sheets had been submitted by doctors from 8 different departments. We examined these patient protocol sheets together with the patient drug profiles. Inquiries were made concerning 53 cases and prescriptions were changed for 23 cases. Thus medical errors were avoided through liaison between ward pharmacists and doctors in some cases. We consider that our system is useful for ensuring that anti-tumor drugs are used properly and plan to improve it further in the future.