Cancer centers are being told how to stretch a chemotherapy drug that has no direct substitute. The American Society of Clinical Oncology and the Association for Clinical Oncology issued a critical drug supply warning on August 25 after members reported severe disruptions to ifosfamide supply, with some practices holding less than a few weeks of inventory.
The societies pointed practices to a conservation document from the Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, which organizes supply, substitution and conservation strategies into a three tier, risk based system so institutions can apply progressively tighter restrictions as a shortage worsens. That is a materially different situation from a drug simply being hard to order. It means clinicians now have a structured method for deciding how limited supply gets distributed among patients who need it.
