Feasibility of a novel weekday-on/weekend-off oral UFT schedule as postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy for colorectal cancer

Abstract

From these results, the feasibility of the weekday-on/weekend-off schedule was judged to be good. It is suggested that the feasibility would be even better if the dose of UFT was set according to body surface area.

Feasibility of 5-days-on/2-days-off UFT/leucovorin in post-operative long-term adjuvant chemotherapy for colorectal cancer

“…In the previous chemotherapy, with UFT as a single agent, the 5-days-on/2-days-off schedule has been reported to be safer and more feasible than the consecutive schedule (5). Tegafur is metabolized to 5-FU by the hepatic P-450 drug-metabolizing enzyme.…”

“…The conventional UFT/LV regimen has been accepted as one of the adjuvant chemotherapies following surgery. A 5-day-on/2-day-off schedule for UFT/LV, which is followed on 5 weekdays followed by 2 weekend days off, has been proposed as the same schedule for UFT has been reported to be safe and have good compliance (3)(4)(5). However, few studies have been performed with regards to the feasibility of the 5-days-on/2-days-off schedule of UFT/LV in terms of safety and compliance.…”

The Challenges of Oral Agents as Antineoplastic Treatments

“…7 Often, when self-report of medication adherence is used as the measure, a yes or no (dichotomous) question is asked of the patient. 8,9 When Medication Event Monitoring System (MEMS [electronic pill boxes that alarm and measure cap openings]) are used, the number of bottle cap openings are compared to the number of expected bottle cap openings that are prescribed during a treatment period. 10 When pharmacy claims data are used to examine adherence, a proportion of the days that the patient had the medication available is compared to the proportion of the days that the patient had the medication prescribed over the observation period and is calculated as the percentage of adherence.…”

Assessment and Measurement of Adherence to Oral Antineoplastic Agents

“…7,20,21,[23][24][25]38,39,50,51,[55][56][57][58][59] Although the MEMS is touted as a "gold standard" measurement in medication compliance, only 6 of the adult studies 8,48,52,53,60 and one pediatric study 61 used this method of measurement. MEMS is not considered to be a practical tool in the clinical setting due to its excessive cost.…”

“…Pill counts 7,56 and medical record clinical note audits occurred, [19][20][21][22][23]25,62 yet were not very common, probably due to the labor intensive nature of conducting these measures. Direct serum or urine 55,57 measures were rare in adults, yet very common in pediatric oncology. 26,[63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72] However, these measures can only occur in the clinical setting when feasible and cost effective.…”