In older adults with cancer, preventive drugs namely those to lower blood pressure or cholesterol were found to be commonly prescribed during the last year of life, even though they are unlikely to provide meaningful benefits, stated new study. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings point to the need for efforts to reduce the burden of drugs with limited clinical benefit near the end of life.
Many older adults take multiple medications concomitantly, which increases the risk of experiencing serious side effects. For older patients with cancer, the benefit of each additional medicine gradually decreases while the risk of harm increases as the illness progresses and prognosis worsens. Benefits may be especially limited for preventive drugs, since these drugs often take several years to achieve their goal. In the context of advanced cancer, the added value of starting or continuing preventive drugs becomes questionable since the patient's remaining life expectancy may be too short to observe any of the intended benefits.
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There is limited information on the extent to which such medications are prescribed to patients with advanced cancer before death. Lucas Morin, MS, of the Karolinska Institute, and his colleagues evaluated the prescribing of preventive drugs throughout the final year of life of older adults with cancer who died between 2007 and 2013 across Sweden. The team also estimated the direct costs of such preventive drugs.
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Median drug costs during the last year of life amounted to $1,482 per person, including $213 for preventive therapies. Preventive drugs accounted for approximately one-fifth of the total costs of prescribed drugs, and this proportion decreased only slightly as death approached. Costs for preventive drugs were especially high in older adults who died with pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, or gynecological cancers.
The findings suggest that reducing the use of preventive medications in people with advanced cancer near the end of life has the potential to not only reduce unnecessary side effects and improve patient quality of life, but also to reduce financial burdens for patients. "Although the preventive drugs reported in our study are most often pharmacologically and clinically appropriate in the general population, their use in the context of limited life expectancy and palliative goals of care should be examined critically," said Morin.
Source: Eurekalert
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