title: FabAct®: a decision-making tool for the anticipation of the preparation of anticancer drugs.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Due to the increase of new cancer cases, our chemotherapy compounding unit must face with ever-growing production needs. To support this increasing workload, we decided to anticipate the preparation of several anti-cancer drugs.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To help us in the decision making, we needed a modern tool able to combine several criteria for selecting appropriate medications for an anticipated preparation. The aim of this study was to assess the decision-making software, FabAct(®) (Version 1.0).
  
  
  METHODS
  FabAct(®) ranked all of the anti-cancer drugs used in our chemotherapy compounding unit according to price, chemical stability, compounding difficulties, dosage and production per year. Then, we started to anticipate currently the preparation of four medications and conducted a follow-up of destroyed preparations between January and May 2007. We tried to identify the destruction causes and calculated the time saved for the patients and for the pharmacy technicians.
  
  
  RESULTS
  According to the decision-making software, the first four drugs for an anticipated preparation were: fluorouracil, cisplatin, carboplatin and paclitaxel. A total of 3913 (50.2%) anticipated preparations were performed and among those, 470 (12%) were destroyed. The main cause of destruction was due to the preparation expiration. Finally, the mean waiting time per patient was reduced from 118 minutes to 68 minutes after the application of the anticipated model.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  According to this 5-month follow-up, FabAct(®) helped us to select appropriate anti-cancer drugs to anticipate the compounding. Most of the anticipated preparations were administrated to patients and the patient waiting time was significantly reduced.
authors.affiliation: Pharmacy Department, Georges Pompidou European Hospital AP-HP, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Brigitte
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bonan
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Martelli
authors.forename: Malik
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Berhoune
authors.forename: Ludovic-Alexandre
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Vidal
authors.forename: Evren
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sahin
authors.forename: Patrice
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Prognon
mesh_terms: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000600:supply & distribution / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D004339:Drug Compounding; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D008495:Medical Oncology; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents