Cancer diagnoses diminishes adherence to diabetes medications

the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:

According to a new study published in the journal Diabetologia, patients with diabetes become less adherent to their antihyperglycemic medications after receiving a cancer diagnosis.

For the study, researchers sought to evaluate changes in adherence to antihyperglycemic medications used to treat diabetes after a diagnosis of cancer. Researchers identified 52,228 antihyperglycemic mediation users from the Eindhoven Cancer Registry-PHARMO Database Network in the Netherlands between 1998 and 2011. Of those, they identified 3,281 cases with cancer and 12,891 controls without cancer.

Results showed that before a cancer diagnosis, the medication possession ratio (MPR), an indicator for medication adherence, was increased by 0.10% per month. At the time of cancer diagnosis, researchers found that the MPR decreased by 6.3%, which continued to decline by 0.20% monthly thereafter.

Patients diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and those with gastroinestinal or pulmonary cancers had the largest declines in MPR. The initial 6% MPR decrease translates to a patient missing 2 days of their antihyperglycemic medications.

The findings suggest that a cancer diagnosis can diminish adherence to medications of patients' other chronic conditions.