widespread Shortage of anticancer drugs Physicians are faced with difficult decisions about how to treat patients, such as limiting doses or switching to other treatments that may have more side effects.
As of Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration has listed 14 cancer drugs that are in short supply.
FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Calif told NBC News, “The shortage in oncology is particularly acute.” “I am a former intensivist and I know the consequences of not getting the chemotherapy I need.”
according to March report Drug shortages are at record levels, according to the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. New drug shortages increased by nearly 30% from 2021 to 2022. By the end of 2022, there were 295 active drugs, the highest in five years. drug shortage.
“I don’t know a worse time than this,” said Dr. Julie Gralow, chief medical officer and executive vice president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. “I think what makes this shortage different is the broader scope of these drugs, how important they are in the treatment of many diseases globally and in the United States. ”
Between missing medicine Carboplatin is a chemotherapy drug used as a first-line treatment for many cancers.
“Carboplatin is a very important drug for the treatment of many cancers. breast cancerDr. Lucio Gordan, a medical oncologist and director of the Florida Institute of Cancer Professionals Research, a network of cancer clinics, said: Gordan said they had been drug free for almost two weeks.
“I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Oncologists in Florida realized the shortage was approaching and tried to prepare. Over the past few months, they’ve been distributing carboplatin doses truncated by 10%, but Gordan said this doesn’t make the drug less effective.
“We’ve been truncating for a while,” he said. “But I’ve just run out of drugs, so there’s nothing to round off.”
Carrie Cherkinski, 41, of Tallahassee, Fla., learned of the shortage from a Facebook support group for women with ovarian cancer. She was still shocked when she learned she could not have her second round of chemotherapy scheduled for May 15 at the Florida Cancer Specialty Hospital. Gordan was not involved in her treatment.
“Who is to blame for this?” said Cerkinski, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in March. “Can’t I get life-saving treatment?”
Carboplatin is not just an effective drug. It is also less toxic and has fewer side effects than other available drugs.
“One of the problems with these alternatives is that they often don’t work as well, which can compromise survival,” said Dr. Angeles Alvarez Secordo, president of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology. .
Additionally, “more toxic means more expensive to treat, because you have to deal with the side effects and administer additional drugs to prevent the side effects,” Secord said. “So even when alternatives exist, they often still fall short of the best standard of care.”
Hospitals and cancer centers across the country are facing similar decisions about cancer care.
Doctors in at least 40 states are short of at least one chemotherapy drug, according to a survey conducted in May by the Society of Gynecologic Oncology.
Dr. Eleonora Teplinski, a breast and gynecologic oncologist at Valley Health System in New Jersey, said the shortage was devastating.
“Cancer is life-changing on its own, but as a patient, I expect to go to a clinic and get the best possible care,” said Dr. Teplinski. “And at this time, we don’t have the best treatment for any particular cancer.”
Drug shortages place additional stress on cancer patients as well as health care workers.on top of being in Already burnt out and exhausted workforce When a pandemic strikes, doctors must scramble to find life-saving treatments.
“Not just oncology, but all medical settings in this country are under additional stress since COVID-19,” Gordan said. “This is another curveball that keeps us from doing our best.”
Shortages can catch providers off guard.
Suppliers do not issue warnings when drugs are about to run out. Andrea Iannucci, assistant chief pharmacist at the University of California, Davis Health, said they would stop filling all orders. “So we placed an order and thought it would arrive, but it didn’t because it wasn’t available,” Iannucci said.
Keri Carville, 44, of Sacramento, Calif., was diagnosed with: triple negative breast cancer Triple-negative breast cancer is a particularly aggressive type of breast cancer.
“It’s stressful and scary,” says Carville.
What caused the shortage and what can be done to fix it?
The current carboplatin shortage is partly due to quality concerns at one of India’s manufacturing facilities, Intus Pharmaceuticals, but experts say the real problem is more chronic.
“Unfortunately, the profitability of this industry is very low or non-existent,” Khalif said. “Many companies are going out of business or having quality issues because they are having difficulty investing in technology. That is the underlying reason for the shortages we are seeing.”
In a statement to NBC News, Intus Pharmaceuticals said it is working with the FDA to release existing inventories of carboplatin and other medically necessary products. He added that he is working with authorities on plans to resume production, but has not yet confirmed when.
Caliph said the FDA is working with additional manufacturers to make more carboplatin available.
But a long-term solution would require “congressional and White House intervention to put this industry in the right place,” he said, adding that a White House team was working on the drug shortage problem. rice field.
Teplinsky, a medical oncologist in New Jersey, told his social media followers to reach out to elected officials to ensure the timely production of chemotherapy drugs and that such a thing never happens again. He said he was encouraging them to advocate for long-term policies.
“Treatment delays affect outcomes,” says Teplinski. “So in this case, we either can’t give people what they want, or they have to wait. We know that will lead to negative consequences.”follow NBC Health upon twitter & Facebook.
This article was originally published NBC News.com
