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Drug shortages are a complex worldwide challenge that are not just an inconvenience to patients but can cause significant harm. When vital medicines are unavailable, patients' health is at risk from treatment failure or delays, being prescribed less effective alternatives, or even missing out on care altogether. This can lead to worsening illnesses, complications, or higher healthcare costs.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has called drug shortages a global health challenge that requires urgent action and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) keeps a catalogue of medicine shortages.
In collaboration with other global institutes, a research team from the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences (NDORMS), University of Oxford – co-lead by Theresa Burkard and Marta Pineda-Moncusí – analysed real-world healthcare data from 52 large databases covering over 600 million people. They looked at the use of 57 medicines, including antibiotics, cancer treatments, and therapies for chronic illnesses.
Marta Pineda-Moncusí, lead researcher of the new study published in The Lancet Public Health said: 'Monitoring of drug shortages is essential to evaluate and mitigate their impact on patient care. While the EMA keeps records of medicines in short supply, we wanted to go further and understand how these shortages translated into changes in medicine use across Europe and North America. Our question was whether drug shortages resulted in drops in the rate and overall level of use of medicines, or whether they led to changes in usage patterns and treatment purposes.'
The study found that some shortages affected nearly all countries, while others varied in intensity, leading to drops in incidence and prevalence of use, or changes in drug utilisation and indication.