Cancer Diary: The Quiet Risk in the Pillbox

 


This week, a study out of the VA system quietly rewrote the rules on medication safety for older adults with cancer. Among 380,000 patients, nearly 4 in 10 were prescribed drugs now flagged as potentially inappropriate—not because they’re inherently harmful, but because they quietly erode resilience. SSRIs, anticholinergics, and certain sedatives top the list.

The tool behind this revelation is called GO-PIMs—Geriatric Oncology Potentially Inappropriate Medications. It doesn’t shame or scold. It simply asks: Does this drug help or hinder the body’s ability to withstand cancer and its treatment? Each additional risky medication increased frailty odds by 66%. That’s not a typo.

Frailty isn’t just a clinical label. It’s the difference between walking to the mailbox or needing a ramp. Between tolerating chemo or being hospitalized for side effects. Between autonomy and dependence.

For caregivers, this means vigilance. For clinicians, it means recalibration. For survivors, it means asking hard questions: Is this pill helping me heal, or is it quietly undermining my strength?

GO-PIMs is now being piloted in clinics. It’s not perfect. But it’s a start—a way to honor the body’s quiet protest against overmedication, especially in the context of cancer.

In this household, we’ve learned to read labels like memoirs. Every prescription tells a story. Some are worth keeping. Some need rewriting.

For other Cancer Diary posts, click HERE.


Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page, Carl's Cancer Compendium, as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The CCC is expanded and updated weekly. As part of this effort, each week, on Monday, this blog will carry an informative, cancer-related story -- and be open to guest posts: Cancer Diary. 



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