Abstract
The clinical pathway (CP) is a standardized protocol used by health care professionals in charge of treatment for a specific patient population.The CP is an effective means of avoiding medical errors especially those due to chemotherapy.At Kanazawa Medical University Hospital,all patients with B-cell lymphoma are treated according to a CP including R-CHOP chemotherapy.Supportive therapies have not yet been included in the CP so the selection of medicines,their initiation and withdrawal are determined empirically by each doctor.
In the present study,we investigated prescriptions for drugs used in supportive therapies and evaluated their effectiveness in 50 patients treated according to the CP for R-CHOP chemotherapy from January 2003 to June 2006,to determine the possibility of including the supportive therapies in the CP.We found some that some supportive therapies were useful and others needed improvement.Our findings suggest that further discussion of standard supportive therapies among doctors,pharmacists,nurses and other health care professionals is required and that they should be gradually incorporated into the CP in the near future.
