“This is dire,” said Valerie Jensen, associate director of the Food and Drug Administration’s drug shortages program. “Supplies are just not meeting demand.”
The drug is methotrexate, and the cancer it treats is known as acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or A.L.L., which most often strikes children ages 2 to 5. It is an unusually virulent cancer of white blood cells that are overproduced in bone marrow and invade other parts of the body.
The cancer commonly spreads to the lining of the spine and brain, and oncologists prevent this by injecting large quantities of preservative-free methotrexate directly into the spinal fluid. The preservative can cause paralysis when injected into the spinal column, so cannot be used for this disease. Methotrexate is also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis.
When Venus Williams bowed out of the U.S. Open last fall due to Sjogren’s syndrome, you may have thought, What? But her problem is more common than many think. Sjogren’s belongs to a group of some 80 autoimmune diseases in which the immune system goes haywire and attacks healthy tissue and organs.
The most widespread medical implant failure in decades — involving thousands of all-metal artificial hips that need to be replaced prematurely — has entered the money phase.
