1. Patient, nurse, and physician preferences: final results of the CONVENIENCE study evaluating pegfilgrastim prophylaxis via pre-filled syringe or on-body injector in cancer patients
- Author
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Christiane D Matillon, Michael Metz, Ulrich Hutzschenreuter, Mark-Oliver Zahn, Steffen Liebers, Andreas Lorenz, Dieter Semsek, Gerlinde Egerer, Michael Berghorn, Carsten Hielscher, Stefan Zacharias, Johanna Harde, Gunther Rogmans, Sina Grebhardt, Karin Potthoff, Dagmar Guth, and Thomas Fietz
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,Patient nurse ,Filgrastim ,Breast Neoplasms ,Manual injection ,Polyethylene Glycols ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Physicians ,Internal medicine ,Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols ,Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor ,Clinical endpoint ,medicine ,Humans ,Syringe ,Patient/physician/nurse preference ,030304 developmental biology ,Early breast cancer ,0303 health sciences ,On-body injector ,Taxane ,business.industry ,Syringes ,Cancer ,medicine.disease ,Patient preference ,Pegfilgrastim ,Recombinant Proteins ,Oncology ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,Original Article ,Female ,business ,medicine.drug - Abstract
Purpose The on-body injector (OBI) automatically delivers pegfilgrastim the day after chemotherapy (CTx), thus eliminating the need of return visits to the medical office for guideline-compliant pegfilgrastim administration. The CONVENIENCE study aimed to evaluate patient, nurse, and physician preferences as well as health economics for pegfilgrastim administration either with OBI or manually using a pre-filled syringe (PS). Methods Patients with early breast cancer, receiving two or three weekly anthracycline/cyclophosphamide or three weekly taxane-based CTx, and patients with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) receiving first-line R-CHOP-14 or -21 were randomized 1:1 to receive both pegfilgrastim application forms for four consecutive CTx cycles in an alternating sequence starting either with OBI or PS. Primary endpoint was patient preference, assessed by questionnaires. Results A total of 308 patients were evaluable in the per-protocol analysis. Patients slightly preferred OBI over PS (OBI, n = 133, 43.2%; vs. PS, n = 111, 36.0%; p-value = 0.159), while study nurses slightly preferred PS (n = 19, 46.3%) over OBI (n = 18, 43.9%) and physicians clearly preferred PS (n = 24, 58.8%) over OBI (n = 15, 36.6%). Among patients with preference for OBI, saving of time was their major reason for preference (53.4%). Pegfilgrastim was administered 24–72 h after each CTx cycle in 97.6% of OBI and 63.1% of PS applications. Conclusion The OBI was slightly preferred by patients and saving time was the major reason for their preference. PS was physicians’ most preferable choice and slightly preferred by nurses. Using OBI, pegfilgrastim was almost always administered within the time period recommended by current guidelines, while it was often not applied as specified using PS. Trial registration No: ClinicalTrials.gov No. NCT03619993. Registered on June 25, 2018
- Published
- 2021