Cancer Drug Shortages Should Have Patients Rioting in the Streets

June 19, 2023

(STAT News) – Every week at my practice, my colleagues and I are now forced to compile a list of how much cisplatin and carboplatin we have compared to how much we need. Recently, we had more than a dozen patients we can’t treat in the coming weeks with our current supply. Our physicians and nurse practitioners review this list of patients and our generic drug supply and ask: 1) Are there any other drugs we can reasonably substitute? (In most cases, the answer is no.) 2) Can we delay or reduce the dose without negatively impacting their outcome? If not, we are forced to send them away from our clinic to a hospital infusion center that still currently has these drugs on hand — supplies that won’t last much longer. These are not questions any oncologist in the most highly resourced country in the world should be forced to ask. (Read More)