Pharmacist Intervention in Outpatients With Prostate Cancer Prevents Apalutamide-induced Skin Adverse Events

Background/aim: Apalutamide induces severe skin adverse events (sAEs) in 14.7% of Japanese patients, leading to treatment discontinuation. To maximize the management of sAEs in patients taking apalutamide for prostate cancer, we conducted pharmacist outpatient clinics for patients receiving apalutamide in the outpatient setting. During these sessions, patients were informed about skin care management, including the application of moisturizers to prevent sAEs. This study aimed to evaluate the usefulness of pharmacist-led outpatient services in managing sAEs.

Patients and methods: Patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer without distant metastases or prostate cancer with distant metastases, receiving 240 mg apalutamide once daily, were divided into pharmacist intervention and nonintervention groups and retrospectively investigated. The primary endpoint was the incidence of all sAEs.

Results: The incidence of sAEs of any grade was significantly lower in the intervention group (n=26) than in the nonintervention group (n=16) (30.8% vs. 68.8%, respectively, p=0.03), without a significant difference in the incidence of grade 3 or more sAEs (3.8% vs. 25.0%, respectively, p=0.05). At the pharmacist outpatient clinics, pharmacists gave 84 recommendations to urologists, with 98.8% of them reflected in prescriptions. The most frequently prescribed moisturizers were heparinoid oil-based creams, with a significantly higher prescription rate in the intervention compared to the nonintervention group (30.0 g/28 days vs. 0 g/28 days, p<0.01).

Conclusion: As far as we are aware, our study is the first to show that intervention by pharmacist outpatient clinics reduces apalutamide-induced sAEs. Pharmacist outpatient clinics can assist in the appropriate skin management of patients taking apalutamide.