Ongoing drug shortages continue to impact Las Vegas valley residents
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Cancer patients in the Las Vegas valley who rely on chemotherapy have something else to worry about — short supplies of medications they need.
“I got diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma the first week of the year,” patient Dustin Allen told 8 News Now. He is fortunately on his way to recovery after starting chemotherapy in March. He had an inflamed lymph node for six months before he was diagnosed.
“I had to get surgery and I had to get two lymph nodes removed. I still have one more that needs treatment,” Allen said.
If everything goes according to plan, Allen should be done with chemo treatments by the end of June, but he said with the continued shortage of medications out there, there’s a chance it could be prolonged.
8 News Now has reported on shortages of neurological drugs in Las Vegas, but now with chemo medication shortages, even more people are being affected.
“Hopefully we have enough left over so I can get my treatments because I only have a couple left. I don’t know what the next rounds would be like if there wasn’t the drug to help me,” Allen said.
His doctor, oncologist Dr. Rupesh Parikh, said the shortage is often related to problems in manufacturing. Also, most of these drugs are generics and only one company is making them. Keeping up with the demand is a challenge.
“It’s become a little bit of a challenge taking care of our patients,” Parikh said. He works at Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada.
“We tell our patients up front that halfway in between treatment there’s a chance we may not have the drug. That’s the scary part in all of this,” he said.
If the medication is on extended delay, that’s when doctors start looking at other options on treatments they can use. But it’s not ideal.
“You don’t want to do that, especially if a patient is doing well on a treatment. But we have had to do it because we didn’t have any other options,” Parikh said.
Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada is also seeing a startling trend when it comes to two specific types of cancers.
“We are seeing younger patients. More colorectal cancers and younger breast cancer patients as well. Those have really gone up in the number of cases we’ve seen,” Parikh said.
While some chemo medications have bounced back from shortages, it’s an ongoing cycle with new drug shortages popping up. The most recent one affecting Dr. Parikh’s cancer patients is Etoposide, which is used to treat a number of different cancers.
Other medications that have been in short supply include Bleomycin, Capecitabine, Carboplatin, Cisplatin, Dacarbazine, Doxorubicin, Fluorouracil and Methotrexate.
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