Dr Ginah Nightingale speaks to ecancer at the SIOG 2019 meeting in Geneva about the prevalence and monitoring of drug-drug interactions (DDIs) in elderly cancer patients.

She mentions the high prevalence of DDIs, which may be attributed to polypharmacy, as these patients are prescribed numerous medications due to their increased co-morbidities.

Dr Nightingale describes a study which focuses on the prevalence of DDIs between proton-pump inhibitors which inhibit the absorption of tyrosine-kinase inhibitors, which are commonly prescribed to treat a variety of malignancies in older adults - leading to an increased risk of mortality.

She concludes by discussing what steps can be taken to reduce the prevalence of DDIs and the consequences of them in the clinic.

This service has been kindly supported by unrestricted grants from Janssen Oncology and Sanofi Genzyme.