A scoping review on the relationship between race/ethnicity and the receipt of supportive care medications during cancer treatment: Implications for the clinical pharmacist

Abstract

There is surmounting levels of evidence on the health disparities within cancer treatment in the United States (US). Most of the research focused on cancer specific factors including anticancer incidence, screening, treatment and follow‐up, and clinical outcomes such as overall survival (OS). Less is known about the disparities present with supportive care medication use in cancer patients. Supportive care utilization during cancer treatment has been linked to improved quality of life (QoL) and OS among patients. The goal of this scoping review is to summarize findings of current literature on the relationship between race and ethnicity and the receipt of supportive care medications during cancer treatment for pain and chemotherapy‐induced nausea and vomiting (CINV). This scoping review was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analysis (PRISMA‐ScR) guidelines. Our literature search included quantitative studies, qualitative studies, and grey literature written in the English language with clinically relevant outcomes pertaining to pain and CINV management in cancer treatment published from 2001 to 2021. Articles that met the predefined inclusion criteria were considered for inclusion in the analysis. The initial search yielded 308 studies. Following deduplication and screening, 14 studies met the predefined inclusion criteria, with majority of the studies being quantitative studies (n = 13). Collectively, results were mixed results regarding the presence of racial disparities for supportive care medication use. Half of the studies (n = 7) supported this finding whereas, the other half (n = 7) did not identify any racial disparities. In our review, multiple studies illustrate the existence of disparities in the use of supportive care medications in some cancer types. Clinical pharmacists should strive to eliminate supportive medication use disparities as part of a multidisciplinary team. In order to develop strategies to prevent supportive care medication use disparities in this population, further research and analysis of external factors that influence them are needed.