Actual Condition Survey on Aseptic Dispensing of Medical Narcotic Injections for Terminally Ill Cancer Patients at Pharmacies

In home palliative care for cancer patients, the aseptic dispensing of medical narcotic injections administered at the end stage of cancer is a task that community pharmacists are responsible for. Although the number of pharmacies with aseptic dispensing systems is increasing, the number of pharmacies actually performing aseptic dispensing is limited. This is necessary to both improve pharmacists’ knowledge on the prescription analysis of medical narcotic injections and share information on the storage and maintenance of medical narcotic injections and supplies. In this study, we collected detailed information on the prescription of medical narcotic injections received at pharmacies of Miyonodai Pharmacy Co., Ltd. to obtain knowledge, which will lead to solutions to the abovementioned problems. More than 50％ of patients received only one narcotic injection prescription, and more than 90％ of patients were injected for less than 1 month. The actual number of days of administration for all four narcotic injectables, for which out-of-hospital prescriptions are available (ie, morphine, oxycodone, fentanyl, and hydromorphone), may be predicted from the estimated number of days of administration in the case of an appropriate prescription design for the patient. These information are hoped to lead to an increase in the demand for medical narcotic injection prescription at pharmacies.