Chemotherapy

Cancer is a disease of abnormal, uncoordinated, uncontrolled and purposeless cell division in any part of body. The leading cause of death in women is due to breast cancer that accounts for 12.7% around the globe. This study aims to describe the prescribing trends and possible avenues for improving of chemotherapy drugs in breast cancer patients. The prospective observational was conducted among 178 patients in the Medical Oncological Department of Apollo Multispecialty Hospital and Research Center for a period of 6 months. The data was assessed and evaluated using statistical tool. The number of patients receiving adjuvant, neoadjuvant and palliative therapy was 131,10 and 37 respectively. The most commonly prescribed drug as monotherapy in adjuvant, neoadjuvant and palliative therapy was paclitaxel (14.5%) or zoledronic acid (14.5%), trastuzumab (40%) and zoledronate (45.9%) respectively. The most commonly prescribed combinational regimens drug in adjuvant, neoadjuvant and palliative therapy was Cyclophosphamide with Docetaxel (15.30%), Cyclophosphamide with Docetaxel (20%) or cyclophosphamide with Epirubicin (20%) and Letrozole with zoledronate (21.6%). Dexamethasone, ondansetron and pantoprazole (100%) were co administered in all the patients during their chemotherapy cycles. The observed side effects were back pain, anemia, neutropenia, insomnia, anxiety, myalgia, cough. The prescribed chemotherapy drugs for the breast cancer meet the criteria of patient’s adherence. Breast cancer is a prevalent type of cancer that require long term therapy and monitoring to evaluate and refine the therapeutic regimen of breast cancer to provide the extension and better quality of life.

There is an increasing incidence of cancer not just in our country but worldwide. The aim of this study is to evaluate socio-demographic data, knowledge, awareness, practice level in cancer patients through assessment of their respective attendants. A self-administered, structured, open ended and pretested questionnaire covering the general characteristics, KAP about cancer, screening and treatments was used to collect responses of cancer patient attendants in KIMS a Teaching Hospital at Hyderabad. Their age group was between 18-79years. The educational preparations of the attendants are as follows: 50 attendants are grouped as “CONTROL”, 50 are grouped as “TEST”. The information thus collected was entered and analyzed in SPSS and Microsoft Excel software. Responses from 100 attendants were recorded and analyzed. The results of both groups i.e. TEST and CONTROL pre-post interventions were tabulated and compared between the groups, educational intervention was given to only test group thus paired t-test results obtained at level of significance 0.005, shown that only test group attendants shown significant difference in aspects of knowledge and practice when compared to that of the control group who received information only at the end of the study. Our study has shown that educational interventional study give high scope in comparative studies where pre-post interventions were in use.