Potential Medication Incompatibilities In Pediatric Oncology Prescriptions

Abstract

Introduction: Pediatric oncology patients have a limited number of venous access routes and need a large number of drugs during hospitalization. This study evaluates potential MI in pediatric oncology prescriptions and identifies possible factors associated with the risk of their occurrence. Methods: Cross-sectional study that evaluated prescriptions from a universitary and tertiary hospital from december 2014 to december 2015. The association between the variables and the risk to potential incompatibilities between drugs was determined by Student’s t test and Pearson’s chi-square, considering p<0.05 significant. Odds Ratio was calculated considering a confidence interval of 95% to each drug. Results: 385 prescriptions were evaluated. The average age from 124 patients was 9.22 years old (SD = ± 5.10), being 50.65% male. The most frequent diagnosis and reason for hospitalization were the leukemias (27.30%) and chemotherapy administration (36.10%). The fully implantable catheter was the most commonly used venous access, in 61.30% of patients. In 87.5% of prescriptions there was the possibility of MI, and a total of 2108 incompatibilities were found, considering 300 different combinations between two drugs. Age, diagnosis, reason for hospitalization and type of venous access were presented as risk factors for potential incompatibilities (p<0.05). Some of the drugs that presented higher risk to potential incompatibilities were: leucovorin, sodium bicarbonate, cefepime, diphenhydramine,dimenhydrinate,hydrocortisone and ondansetron with significant Odds Ratio. Conclusions: the possibility of MI in prescriptions of pediatric oncology patients is frequent. Thus, the identification of risk factors may contribute to patient safety and rational use of drugs.