The Evolving Challenges of Polypharmacy Amongst Patients with Cancer Diagnosis: A Narrative Perspective on Current Trends

Abstract

Across patient populations increasing pill burden per patient often defined as polypharmacy is becoming a worrying therapeutic morbidity. In cancer patients, this becomes more challenging because of lack of clarity on its key themes. These includes its definitional threshold, dichotomization of cancer polypharmacy into those due related chemotherapy, those related to a complication of chemotherapeutic drugs, and those employed for general comorbidities. In this narrative review we have explored the outstanding uncertainties with regard to the varying phenotypes of polypharmacy in patients with cancer with the view to determining exact patient cohorts that will benefit from targeted interventions.