New England Journal of Medicine Article — The Impact of Drug Shortages on Children with Cancer

The December 27, 2012, New England Journal of Medicine includes an important research article on the impact of drug shortages on children with cancer.  The study, conducted by Drs. Monika Metzger, Amy Billett, and Michael Link, evaluated the impact of shortages of mechlorethamine for treatment of intermediate-risk Hodgkin’s lymphoma in children.  The authors found that treatment with cyclophosphamide, the substitute for mechlorethamine, was “significantly less effective” than treatment with mechlorethamine.  The full article is available online. Rob Stein reported on the NEJM study in NPR’s All Things Considered of Wednesday, December 26, 2012.