Saturday, August 20, 2011
By Alex Stuckey
Columbus Dispatch
Hospitals are telling patients they have to halt some treatments or switch to less-effective medications as a nationwide drug shortage drags on.
About 180 drugs are in short supply, including medications used to treat cancer and heart disease, according to the American Hospital Association.
Last year, about 200 drugs were in short supply.
About 82 percent of hospitals surveyed in June said they have delayed some treatments, the association said.
Ryan Forrey, assistant director of the pharmacy department at the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital, said doctors have had to halt some treatments.
About 85 drugs are on short supply at the James, and about 27 are in critical need.
In particular, two drugs used to treat acute leukemia, Cytarabine and Danuorubicin, and Doxil, a drug used to treat gynecological cancers, are needed.
There is an alternative for Danuorubicin called idarubicin, but it is not as effective, Forrey said.
In another instance, the James has imported a drug, Thiotepa, from Italy so that it would be available for patients. Importing the drug cost about 40 percent more and resulted in delays.
“We aren’t used to having to get our drugs from overseas,” Forrey said.
The Federal Drug Administration said manufacturing delays are causing some of the shortages.
Bill Winsley, executive director of the Ohio Board of Pharmacy, said drought, FDA inspections and profits are some other reasons.
Drug shortages aren’t new but have become more frequent in recent years, said Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, chief medical officer for OhioHealth.
“It’s a complex issue, as is so often the case with health-care issues,” he said.
To cope with the shortages, OhioHealth has kept physicians informed so they can fashion alternative treatments, Vanderhoff said.
The hospital system also has streamlined its drug-inventory management to make sure the right amount of medication is delivered to a patient’s bedside. That eliminate wastes, he said.
At the James, a team of doctors meets daily to take inventory of their drug supply and to determine what patients are at the top of their priority list, said department of pharmacy spokeswoman Trisha Jordan.
In February, U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Bob Casey, D-Pa., introduced a bill to address shortages.
Klobuchar said that, among other things, the bill would force drug manufacturers to notify the FDA of any shortages or discontinuances six months in advance or be fined. The FDA also would have to publish all shortages and discontinuances on their website and set up ways to identify drugs that might be vulnerable to shortages.
The bill is in committee.
“The last thing we should do is put patients’ lives at risk simply because it’s less profitable [to make a drug],” Klobuchar said.