Children with ALL suffer drug therapy problems

Drug therapy problems (DTPs), such as adverse drug reactions (ADRs), remain highly prevalent in children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), a study has found.

Overall, 82 DTPs were recorded in this retrospective cohort study, with ADR being the most common (n=59, 72.0 percent), followed by drug interaction (n=9, 11.0 percent).

Among the ADRs, febrile neutropenia had the highest prevalence, occurring in 20 patients (33.9 percent). This was followed by nausea or vomiting in 14 patients (23.7 percent) and anaemia in 11 children (18.6 percent).

Notably, DTPs were more likely to occur among patients with central nervous system disease (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 10.2, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.2–85.8; p=0.03) and those treated with a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy (aOR, 13.5, 95 percent CI, 1.9–89.4; p=0.01).

“Central nervous system metastasis and a combination of chemotherapy and radiation treatment regimens were statistically significant predictors of DTPs,” the investigators said. 

In this study, records of all eligible paediatric patients with ALL who received treatment between 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2021 were analysed. The investigators employed data abstraction for the data collection and performed data entry and analysis using the statistical package for social sciences version 29.0 software.

The findings of the study were presented using frequency tables. Finally, DTP predictors were identified via binary logistic regression analysis.