Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-1-2016

Comments

This article has been peer reviewed. It is the authors' final version prior to publication in Journal of Geriatric Oncology, Volume 7, Issue 5, September 2016, Pages 346-353.

The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jgo.2016.07.010 Copyright © Elsevier

Abstract

Polypharmacy is a highly prevalent problem in older persons, and is challenging to assess and improve due to variations in definitions of the problem and the heterogeneous methods of medication review and reduction. The purpose of this review is to summarize evidence regarding the prevalence and impact of polypharmacy in geriatric oncology patients and to provide recommendations for assessment and management. Polypharmacy has somewhat variably been incorporated into geriatric assessment studies in geriatric oncology, and polypharmacy has not been consistently evaluated as a predictor of negative outcomes in patients with cancer. Once screened, interventions for polypharmacy are even more uncertain. There is a great need to create standardized interventions to improve polypharmacy in geriatrics, and particularly in geriatric oncology. The process of deprescribing is aimed at reducing medications for which real or potential harm outweighs benefit, and there are numerous methods to determine which medications are candidates for deprescribing. However, deprescribing approaches have not been evaluated in older patients with cancer. Ultimately, methods to identify polypharmacy will need to be clearly defined and validated, and interventions to improve medication use will need to be based on clearly defined and standardized methods.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

PubMed ID

27498305

Language

English

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