抄録
Municipal Ikeda Hospital established a palliative care team consisting of physicians, pharmacists, and nurses in February 2002. We investigated the amounts of narcotics used during a period of 5 years, and evaluated the role of pharmacists in the palliative care team based on the trend in the amounts used. The total amounts of narcotics administered varied irregularly during the period but the use of rapid-release morphine hydrochloride products rapidly increased after fiscal 2002. On comparison of the numbers of administration days and the amounts of narcotics used between fiscal 1999 and 2003, the distributions were similar with no significant differences. The proportion of patients treated with rescue prescriptions, both internal and external use preparations, was about 10% until fiscal 2001, but this rapidly increased after fiscal 2002, and reached 71.4% in fiscal 2003. Rescue prescriptions are essential for setting dose escalation for narcotics and sudden appearance of severe pain, and thus the rescue prescription rate could be a means of evaluating the palliative care team. The rapid increase in the amount of rapid-release morphine hydrochloride products administered and the increase in the rescue prescription rate may have resulted from case study meetings, inauguration of cancer pain therapy programs, and subsequent instruction provided by pharmacists to the palliative care team.
