Vì sao nước Mỹ thiếu thuốc điều trị ung thư?

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Cancer medicines desperately needed by sick children and adults are in short supply, undermining the ability of U.S. doctors to administer (thi hành, thực thi) treatments (điều trị), top oncologists (bác sĩ chuyên khoa ung thư) warned this week.

Many drugs are scarce (khan hiếm) because there is no incentive (không có động cơ) for drugmakers (nhà sản xuất thuốc) to manufacture low-cost generics, which have slim profit margins (tỷ suất lợi nhuận mỏng) for pharmaceutical companies. Doctors do not expect that equation to change any time soon, making them scramble to find acceptable alternatives, or to ration or delay treatment when they cannot.

Generic chemotherapy (xạ trị) drugs are in particularly tight supply at the nation's hospitals, including mainstay cancer treatments such as cisplatin, doxorubicin, cytarabine and leucovorin.

...Cisplatin is used to treat testicular (tinh hoàn), bladder (bàng quang) and ovarian (ống dẫn trứng) cancers that have spread. The drug, also used to treat lung cancers, is sold under multiple brand names, originally by Bristol-Myers Squibb. A generic form is sold by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, among others.

Doxorubicin, also available under multiple brands and as a generic from Teva and others, is used to treat non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (ung thư hạch, u bạch huyết), multiple myeloma (đa u tủy), acute leukemias (bệnh bạch cầu cấp tính) and other cancers.

Cytarabine, produced by Hospira Inc and others, is used to treat certain types of leukemia. Leucovorin, also sold by Teva, is used along with certain chemotherapy drugs to treat colorectal (đại trực tràng), head and neck and other cancers.