OBJECTIVES:

The use of oral oncolytics continues to expand within the oncology landscape. Electronic medical records (EMR) can capture prescribing information such as initial dose and prescription dates, which can be readily extracted through databases. However, these structured data often lack accurate treatment histories on actual fulfilment and how patients are taking oral therapies at home. The latter information often requires assessment of unstructured data, which includes progress notes, phone notes and email communications within the EMR. We aimed to assess the rate of completeness of data describing oral oncolytics from charts.

METHODS:

We identified 36 completed retrospective observational chart review studies within The US Oncology Network between January 2019 - December 2021 that included oral oncolytics as treatment options for solid tumors. Chart abstraction data were reviewed to identify the number of patients who initiated oral oncolytics and to identify the number of total oral oncolytics among these patients. We calculated the known start and stop dates and if a start or stop date was not available, the date was documented as unknown.

RESULTS:

There were 9,886 oral oncolytics initiated among 4,814 patients across the 36 studies. Approximately 81% of these therapies had a known start and stop date. For the remaining 19% of therapies, 10% (1,071) start dates were unknown and 9% (916) stop dates were unknown.

CONCLUSIONS:

We observed a high completion rate of start and stop dates available through chart abstraction; however, there remains room for improvement. Integrating structured data with unstructured data can help provide a more comprehensive treatment history to better understand oral oncolytic treatment patterns in the real world. Capturing precise start and stop dates for oral oncolytics through chart abstraction is critical to understand the impact of duration of therapy and compliance on patient outcomes and safety.