Cutting costs and standardizing care: Once-per-cycle complete blood count monitoring may be safe for patients undergoing platinum-based chemotherapy.

AIM: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether frequency of complete blood count (CBC) testing during chemotherapy for gynecologic cancer impacts hospital admissions or rates of neutropenic fever.

METHODS: A retrospective cohort study was performed at a single academic institution. Patients undergoing platinum-based chemotherapy for endometrial or ovarian cancer from January 2010 to December 2014 were identified from a clinical database. Patients receiving dose-dense chemotherapy or on a clinical trial were excluded. Electronic chart review collected demographic and clinical characteristics. The primary outcome was the rate of febrile neutropenia or hospital admission.

RESULTS: A total of 174 patients were identified, 63 (36%) with endometrial and 111 (64%) with ovarian cancer. Fifty-four percent of patients received multiple CBC per cycle compared with 46% who only had one CBC per cycle. The majority of patients were treated with a platinum-based doublet (85%). Dose reductions, addition of granulocyte colony stimulating factor, and rates of grade 3 or 4 anemia and neutropenia were significantly associated with more frequent testing. There was no difference in rates of neutropenic fever (5.3 vs 3.8%, P = 0.45) or hospital admission (22.3 vs 21.3%, P = 0.86) for multiple versus single CBC monitoring.

CONCLUSION: More frequent laboratory testing detected more cases of grade 3 or 4 hematopoietic toxicities and was associated with more interventions. There were no differences in number of hospitalizations or cases of neutropenic fever by frequency of laboratory testing, suggesting that it may be appropriate to decrease routine laboratory tests for select patients.