A 'life-threatening' shortage of cancer drugs has Kansas doctors rationing medications

Kansas health care providers are scrambling to respond to a global shortage of chemotherapy drugs.
For over a month, doctors at AdventHealth Shawnee Mission Cancer Center have struggled to get their hands on enough chemotherapy drugs to treat their patients.

First, their shipments of carboplatin — typically used to treat breast, ovarian and several other cancers — were delayed. They were able to switch some patients onto cisplatin, another platinum-based drug that’s similarly effective but can have more side effects.

Then, their cisplatin shipments stopped arriving on time.

To make dwindling supplies stretch longer, doctors began rounding patients’ doses down by as much as 10% — within professional guidelines — and began bracing for the need to take more drastic action if the shortage persists.