Study - Bottrop pharmacist scandal: No higher recidivism rates
A study has shown no higher relapse or mortality rates in patients who were treated with diluted cancer drugs from a Bottrop pharmacist who has since been convicted. This was reported by the NRW Ministry of Health, which had commissioned an extended comparative study from the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology (BIPS) in Bremen.
The BIPS had compared data on the course of disease in people suffering from breast cancer, blood cancer and lymphatic cancer who had received cancer drugs from the "Alte Apotheke Bottrop" pharmacy with patients who had been treated by other pharmacies.
Following an initial review of data up to 2016, the Institute now examined the period from 2017 to 2019. The result: relapses did not occur more frequently in breast cancer patients who had received extended medication than in the comparison group, as the ministry reported on Thursday.
According to the report, deaths were not more frequent among blood and lymph gland cancer patients who had received the adulterated drugs. However, as in the first study, it was again shown that those affected received significantly more chemotherapy on average for their treatment compared to the control group.
Study leader Ulrike Haug qualified that the group comparison did not, however, allow any conclusions to be drawn for individual cases. It could "not be concluded that none of the patients experienced a less favorable course of the disease due to the underdosed preparations from the Bottrop pharmacy".
At the end of 2016, it became known that the pharmacy manager had been dispensing cancer drugs with a reduced amount of active ingredient or without any active ingredient at all for years. In 2018, he was sentenced to twelve years in prison and banned from the profession for life for fraud and violating the German Medicines Act in more than 15,000 cases.
As a result of the scandal, monitoring was tightened. At least once a year, unannounced samples are taken from specialist pharmacies that produce cancer drugs. According to the ministry, an evaluation shows "that the chemical quality of the preparations for oncological treatments produced in North Rhine-Westphalia for individual patients is good".
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- Despite being treated with adulterated cancer drugs from a Bottrop pharmacist who was convicted for fraud, patients with lymph gland cancer in North Rhine-Westphalia did not have higher mortality rates, according to a recent study by the BMG in Düsseldorf.
- The pharmacy manager in Bottrop, known for dispensing diluted cancer drugs and violating the German Medicines Act in thousands of cases, was sentenced to twelve years in prison and banned from the profession permanently in 2018.
- Following the scandal, the BMG strengthened monitoring measures for cancer drug pharmacies in North Rhine-Westphalia, including taking unannounced samples at least once a year to ensure the chemical quality of the preparations.
- Due to the strict monitoring, no evidence of higher recidivism rates or reduced effectiveness of cancer drugs in patients from Bottrop was found, despite the pharmacist's criminal activities.
Source: www.stern.de
