The University of Liverpool and Radboud University, Nijmegen have launched a new website for promoting safer prescription and improving quality of care for cancer patients called http://www.cancer-druginteractions.org.

The new website will host an easy-to-use, interaction checker, enabling rapid screening for drug-drug interactions (DDIs) with anti-cancer agents.

The anti-cancer agents will be organized by generic name, trade name and indication and a comprehensive list of commonly prescribed co-medication will be available on the website. The rationale and quality of evidence behind each recommendation will also be clearly displayed.

The team plans to produce a comprehensive resource hosting up to 200 anti-cancer agents used for treating both solid and haematological cancers which will be rolled out over the next three to five years.

Cancer patients are at significant risk of DDIs since they can often be prescribed multiple drugs as part of their anti-cancer therapy regimen, in order to manage the side effects of therapy and, increasingly, in order to manage additional comorbidities. They may also use complementary and alternative medicines.

This new resource will address this challenge by improving DDI education and empowering Health Care Professionals to manage DDIs more effectively.