DI-055 Identification of lack of adherence to tyrosine kinase inhibitors in patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia

Abstract

Background Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have revolutionised the treatment of Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML). Adherence to this chronic treatment is essential to attain the therapeutic objectives expected. Purpose To identify patients on TKIs with adherence problems. Materials and methods Patients diagnosed with CML and treated with a TKI were selected. Adherence was determined by the Simplified Medication Adherence Questionnaire (SMAQ), a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the medicines dispensing records. Patients were considered non-adherent (NA) if they had a response indicating non adherence in the SMAQ, a score below 9 on the VAS or fewer than 90% of the days with enough medicines at home. Results 48 patients were selected: 50% male and a median age of 59 years (range: 24–91). 40 patients were treated with imatinib, 6 with nilotinib and 2 with dasatinib. According to SMAQ, 12 patients were NA, 31 adherent (A) and 5 did not answer (n/a). According to VAS, 2 patients were NA, 42 A and 4 n/a. Dispensing records revealed 6 patients NA and 42 A. The combination of these three methods identified 16 patients as NA (33%) and 32 as A (67%). Looking at the TKI prescribed, the percentage of NA was 28% of patients with imatinib, 50% of patients with nilotinib and 100% of those with dasatinib. Conclusions We found that a high percentage of patients (33%) were non-adherent. It is important to identify these patients in order to strength pharmaceutical care. This can be essential for their successful treatment. No conflict of interest.