CT Doctors Concerned about Chemotherapy Drug Shortage

Cancer is uncontrolled cell division, the more cells divide, the more cells are produced.

These excess cells build on each other to form a structure known as a tumor.

Cancer cells lose the ability to sense carrying capacity.

Chemotherapy is a treatment used to destroy fast-growing cancer cells.

Chemotherapy is, unfortunately, unable to distinguish between healthy and cancer cells. Therefore, it can often destroy healthy cells needed for survival.

Vincristine is a type of plant alkaloid which is used to treat various forms of metastases. It is able to inhibit the growth of microtubules within a cell.

Microtubules are essential in eukaryotic cells and their main function within a cell is to support cellular structure and connect chromosomes during cell division so that they separate.

As a result, if microtubules are inhibited, then the cell will die. Vincristine is used in pediatric cancer patients, and now there is a shortage of supply nationwide. In Connecticut alone, approximately 250 children are diagnosed with cancer yearly.

Dr. Michael Isakoff, the clinical director at the hospital’s Division of Hematology & Oncology estimated that approximately 80 % of their patients receive Vincristine at some point during their chemotherapy treatments.

He even stated that the hospital mainly relies on Vincristine and recalled that they currently only have a two month supply. Similarly, when NBC reached out to the Yale-New Haven Hospital about the crisis, they only had enough of the drug to last them until the end of November 2019.

NBC also spoke with Pfizer Incorporations, the company responsible for Vincristine, they issue a public statement informing that they will be expediting the supply three to four times the normal production rate.

IMAGE COURTESY OF MAYO CLINIC