Patients compliance, adherence and persistance is associated with effectiveness of oral therapies

Abstract

The use of oral antineoplastic agents increases, as patients and physicians prefere this route of admininistration.
Many factors such as drug bioavialability, health care financial resourses, patients compliance,
adherence and persistance influence effectiveness of oral therapies. The most important problem in
medical care for chronic antineoplastic therapies is non-adherence. Poor compliance may translate
into lower efficacy of therapy. Only half of patients take drugs according to prescription. Patient-related,
disease-related, therapy-related and health care system-associated factors may affect compliance. Older
age iscreases probability of non-adherence and nonpersistence to antineoplastic oral therapy.