A national shortage of common cancer drugs is pushing some doctors to adjust which medications they use for patients.
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network reports that nearly all the centers it surveyed last month were dealing with shortages of carboplatin and cisplatin, both of which are used to treat a range of cancers.
"This is a frightening situation for cancer patients across the nation,” says Julie Kennerly-Shah, Associate Director of Pharmacy Services at Ohio State University’s Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.
Kennerly-Shah says Ohio State’s facilities are managing through the shortage.
“Our patients have not seen an impact at this point, but I have been receiving calls from all over the state asking if we have extra supply,” says Kennerly-Shah. “Our drug shortage team and our purchasing team is working around the clock to procure supply, to monitor days on hand, to place back orders to follow up with manufacturers.”
Kennerly-Shah says the hospitals have received many different reasons for why these medications are on shortage. One reason is that when one manufacturer pauses production due to a quality issue, the other manufacturers are swamped with requests causing a medication shortage. Another reason is a shortage of raw supplies for manufacturers.
Kennerly-Shah says she is concerned that other health care providers will have to make difficult decisions.
"It's really an untenable situation where physicians and pharmacists are scrambling to conserve the supply that they have to ask for transparency for drug manufacturers regarding when we will receive additional supply and to try to make the best clinical decisions that we can to care for all the cancer patients that we provide care for,” says Kennerly-Shah.
Kennerly-Shah does not know how long it will take to end the medication shortage.
"Over the past six months, these have been the worse cancer drug shortages that I've seen over the past 10 years in my career,” says Kennerly-Shah.
WOSU reached out to multiple central Ohio health systems to inquire about the shortage and received responses from Mount Carmel and OhioHealth.
In response, a spokesperson for Mount Carmel said "we are not seeing these shortages."
A spokesperson for OhioHealth issued the following statement:
"Ohio Health is actively monitoring the chemotherapy agents that are currently part of the nationwide drug shortages. Our pharmacy team keeps a close eye on how much we need and how much is coming in to OhioHealth. To date, we have only had to implement shortage strategies for one of the chemotherapy agents. OhioHealth pulled together a group of oncologists, pharmacists and clinical ethics team members in guiding shortage strategies. For the impacted chemotherapy agent with a shortage, OhioHealth is asking oncologists to temporarily limit new starts to curative regimens involving this drug. OhioHealth has ensured patients already on this therapy had stock to complete all cycles."
A spokesperson with Nationwide Children's Hospital released the following statement:
"Nationwide Children’s is closely monitoring its supply of these medications to ensure we have what is needed for patients. Fortunately at this time, there has been no disruption to any patient chemotherapy regimens. Our pharmacy and oncology teams have connected to ensure that we are using our supplies in the most effective ways possible. These medications are critical to many pediatric chemotherapy regimens, but our overall use is much lower than our adult colleagues. Generally, our strategy with shortages is always to engage both pharmacists and clinicians to seek operational efficiencies that minimize the impact to patients, and to be prepared if clinical changes could be needed at some point in the future. Drug shortage management remains a daily part of hospital pharmacy practice. While hospitals do their best to find alternatives, chemotherapy shortages are particularly concerning for some patients, as there are not always clear alternatives with known equivalent outcomes for life-threatening illnesses."
