Cancer medication errors common in outpatient treatment, study says
Excerpts from the Globe's blog on the Boston-area medical community.
Mistakes in medications given to cancer patients in clinics or at home are more common than previously thought, according to a study led by University of Massachusetts Medical School researchers.
Wrong doses or other errors occurred in 7 percent of adults' chemotherapy visits and 19 percent of children's visits, Dr. Kathleen E. Walsh and her colleagues write in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. They studied the records of 10,995 medications taken by cancer patients at three adult clinic and one pediatric oncology clinic in the Southeast, Southwest, Northeast, and Northwest, searching for errors in medications administered at the clinics or prescribed to be given at home. A previous study that looked at medications given only at a cancer center found a 3 percent error rate.
In the UMass study, there were 22 errors among 117 pediatric visits, and 90 errors among 1,262 adult visits for an overall error rate of 8 percent.
More than half the 112 medication errors had the potential to cause harm and 15 did result in injury. Most errors involved the wrong doses, often because two sets of orders were written: one when the patient was diagnosed and another when adjustments were made on the day of treatment. Only five mistakes were caught before they reached the patient.
Many more medication mistakes were made at home for children than adults, the study found. Three-quarters of the pediatric errors, but only 7 percent of adult patient errors, were made at home.
'Thirdhand' smoke dangers examined
You've probably heard of secondhand smoke, the passive exposure to tobacco smoke implicated in the deaths and illnesses of nonsmokers. Smoking bans in workplaces or in bars and restaurants became more likely after a 1986 surgeon general's report equated such exposure with involuntary smoking. But what about thirdhand smoke? That's the term for smoke contamination that lingers after the cigarette is stubbed out. Residual toxins remain in the air, on surfaces such as clothing, and even in household dust, according to research cited in an article in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Researchers led by Dr. Jonathan P. Winickoff of Mass. General say children are especially vulnerable to thirdhand smoke exposure because they breathe, crawl, play, touch, and put in their mouths contaminated surfaces. But do their parents believe breathing air in a room where people smoked the day before poses a danger to their children? Among 1,478 people in a national survey, about two-thirds of nonsmokers agreed that thirdhand smoke could hurt their children, compared with just under half of smokers. Almost all nonsmokers and almost as many smokers agreed secondhand smoke was harmful. "Emphasizing that thirdhand smoke harms the health of children may be an important element in encouraging home smoking bans," they write.
ELIZABETH COONEY 