Goals: Cancer patients treated with chemotherapy often develop anaemia. This cross-sectional analysis examined the effect of anaemia treatment on patient and caregiver time and activities.
Materials and methods: The analysis included 9,920 patients from 646 US outpatient oncology centres. Patients completed a survey that contained questions about travel time, total time for the visit and other impacts.
Results: The mean time taken for a single clinic visit to receive anaemia treatment was 2.2 h. On average, patients receiving epoetin alfa required 17.6 h more than patients receiving darbepoetin alfa to complete a course of anaemia treatment. All patients in the study reported that they had to adjust at least one activity as a result of clinic visits. Older patients, women and patients from low-income areas were more likely to be accompanied during clinic visits.
Conclusions: Reducing the number of clinic visits needed for anaemia treatment by using darbepoetin alfa may benefit patients.