Expert Insights on the United States Chemotherapy Shortage

Oncology experts discuss the platinum chemotherapy shortage in the United States.

Welcome to OncLive On Air®! I’m your host today, Ashling Wahner.

OncLive On Air® is a podcast from OncLive®, which provides oncology professionals with the resources and information they need to provide the best patient care. In both digital and print formats, OncLive® covers every angle of oncology practice, from new technology to treatment advances to important regulatory decisions.

In today’s episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with experts in breast, genitourinary, gastrointestinal, and lung cancers about the platinum chemotherapy shortage in the United States.

A survey conducted by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Best Practices Committee between May 21, 2023, and May 31, 2023, polled 27 NCCN member institutions about their experience with the shortage. Ninety-three percent of these centers reported a shortage of carboplatin, and 70% of these centers indicated a lack of cisplatin.

In our exclusive interview, the following experts in a variety of solid tumor types emphasized issues brought on by the chemotherapy shortage and proposed potential solutions for ending this shortage and preventing similar ones from occurring in the future:

  • Seth Wander, MD, PhD, is a medical oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston.
  • Paolo Tarantino, MD, is a researcher at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, Italy, as well as a clinical research fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
  • Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, is a professor of medicine (medical oncology) and urology at Yale School of Medicine, as well as chief of Genitourinary Oncology at Yale Cancer Center in New Haven, Connecticut.
  • Lionel A. Kankeu Fonkoua, MD, is a medical oncologist in the Department of Medical Oncology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
  • Solange Peters, MD, PhD, is a full professor and chair of Medical Oncology and the Thoracic Malignancies Programme in the Department of Oncology at the University Hospital of Lausanne in Switzerland.
  • Edgardo Santos, MD, FACP, FCCP, is a clinical affiliate associate professor at the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University, as well as the treasurer for the Florida Society of Clinical Oncology.

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