By SOLA OGUNDIPE

SHORTAGES of generic oncology chemotherapeutic agents is raising safety concernsing among healthcare providers because it is limiting patient-care choices, and affecting clinical outcomes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also warned last week that the antimalarial drug primaquine will not be not available until September, 2011.

The development which is stretching already tight pharmacy resources in the global health sector, is believed to be fast changing how the products and patients are handled.

According to Sylvia Bartel, Vice President, Pharmacy Services, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, the continuing shortage has become a danger despite multiple calls daily to the Food nad Drug Administration (FDA), manufacturers and wholesalers.

“It is a matter of putting additional resources and staff behind the effort. And every time we have to substitute a drug or a formulation, safety becomes a huge issue.”

The safety concerns are greatest for common generic agents that are part of multiple regimens for multiple tumour types. The Institute for Safe Medication Practices has linked shortages of the agents with adverse chemotherapy outcomes, errors, and near misses.

Executive Vice President, Institute for Safe Medicine Practices (ISMP), Dr Allen Vaida, noted that the drug shortages put patients at risk of not receiving the most appropriate therapy or not receiving any therapy at all.”

Also affected by the shortages are antimicrobials, neuromuscular blockers, cardiovascular agents, CNS drugs, and hormones have all been in short supply over the past two years. In a related development, Primaquine, the only drug that can be used to eliminate hypnozoites, the dormant forms of malaria parasites, is hard to get.

Healthcare providers choose to maintain persons at risk of relapse on weekly chloroquine prophylaxis until primaquine is available again.

The CDC recommends that during the shortage, primaquine should not be prescribed for primary chemoprophylaxis.