A time-and-motion study of chemotherapy administration in metastatic breast cancer

Background: Ordering and delivering chemotherapy is complex, impacting patient and caregiver quality of life. Metastatic breast cancer (mBC) patients receive intravenous chemotherapy with variable administration times and patient satisfaction may differ by session length. We investigated common chemotherapy agents for mBC through a time and motion analysis. Methods: We conducted a prospective, observational time-and-motion study of adult females with mBC receiving ≥ 2nd-line eribulin, vinorelbine (VI), or gemcitabine (GC) at a large community oncology clinic. An observer documented times events occurred (Table). Patients completed a satisfaction survey adapted from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s cancer care survey and the Cancer Therapy Satisfaction Questionnaire. Event times were compared using t-test. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to test correlations between time and satisfaction. Results: 17 patients (11 eribulin, 6 VI/GC) comprising 31 observations (20 eribulin, 11 VI/GC) were included in the preliminary analysis. Patients were 65 years on average, 71% white, and 94% post-menopausal; all were HER-2-. Mean years since mBC diagnosis was lower for eribulin than VI/GC patients (1.7 vs 5.0, p Citation Format: Lee Schwartzberg, Debanjana Chatterjee, Russel Knoth, Sarah N Gibbs, K Hamzah Ahmed, Michael S Broder, Irina Yermilov. A time-and-motion study of chemotherapy administration in metastatic breast cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2019 Dec 10-14; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P2-15-13.