Men with advanced prostate cancer going without life-prolonging medication amid shortage

CNN — Doctors across the United States who treat people with advanced prostate cancer can’t find supplies of a medicine that may help them live longer. “Any interruption in the process, from unplanned manufacturing events to doses not arriving in time, may result in patient doses being rescheduled and can have a cascading effect on patients scheduled for future treatment.” The Swiss company said it has been in touch with treatment centers and providers in the US and is “actively engaging with them to manage rescheduling of patient doses.” The problem is that Novartis’ manufacturing facility in Ivrea, Italy, can’t keep up with demand for the drug. “The real tragedy is the patients partially under treatment who have had great responses and we can’t get them the rest of their therapy in a timely fashion.” Next to skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer in American men, according to the American Cancer Society. “There are some patients that really do have those sort of miraculous responses, so it does occasionally give us one of those ‘wow’ moments,” said Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society.