TUESDAY, Oct. 25, 2005 (HealthDay News) -- While chemotherapy errors are rare, they can have serious consequences, according to a new U.S. study.
The study concluded that an error occurred in about one out of 30 chemotherapy orders at three ambulatory infusion clinics and that one in 50 orders involved a serious error. Most, but not all, of the errors were detected before they reached the patient and none caused any harm.
Reporting in the Dec. 1 issue of the journal Cancer, researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston reviewed more than 10,000 medication orders from three walk-in chemotherapy clinics using either computerized or paper medication ordering systems. The overall medication error rate was 3 percent, while the rate for serious errors was 2 percent, according to the study.
The study found that 82 percent of the errors in adults and 60 percent of the errors in children had the potential to cause an adverse drug event if the errors had reached the patients. Of these, about 33 percent could have caused serious harm.
Nearly 50 percent of the errors were intercepted by existing systemic checks and none of the errors actually caused an adverse drug event.
The most frequent errors in the adult clinics -- which used computerized ordering systems -- were due to omission of dosages and failure to discontinue orders. In the children's clinic, which used a paper ordering system, the most frequent errors were incorrect dosages and failures to discontinue orders, the study found.
While none of these errors harmed patients, the findings emphasize the need to implement safer drug ordering and dispensing controls at chemotherapy infusion clinics, according to an expert editorial in the same issue of the journal.
More information
The American Cancer Society has more about chemotherapy.
