Minnesota hospitals and clinics are reporting episodic shortages of chemotherapy drugs, a symptom of wider disruptions in the nation's pharmaceutical supply chain.
While drug shortages happen from time to time, the chemo shortfall is worrisome because it could disrupt strict treatment regimens that give cancer patients the best odds of survival.
"It's hard to just flip [cancer patients] onto something else," said Lisa Gersema, pharmacy director at United Hospital in St. Paul. "You may not be able to do that with them, whereas we do have other ways of providing sedation and things like that" to patients.
Twin Cities cancer centers have reported varying shortages, depending on the wholesalers involved and the amount of medication they had stockpiled. United and other hospitals in the Allina health system are trading with each other when supplies run short. So are Fairview hospitals.
Minnesota Oncology, the state's largest outpatient cancer center, has provided chemotherapy drugs to other clinics and hospitals in need. It likewise relied on them when it ran out of leucovorin, a drug taken in combination with certain types of chemotherapy to improve their effectiveness.
Supplies were so limited at one point that doctors had to adjust the chemotherapy regimens for a few patients who had already started them, said Jan Merriman, clinical director of Minnesota Oncology's pharmacy services. Patients and doctors were frustrated because they deviated from chemotherapy protocols that have been proven through research to have good results.
"You don't usually stray from that," Merriman said. "Anytime you do something different, you don't know" what the impact will be.
United hasn't had to delay chemotherapy for patients or switch them to other drugs. The hospital provides a relatively small amount of chemotherapy, because most patients receive it at clinics on an outpatient basis, Gersema said.
