Doctors searching for solution after shortage in drug for...

CHARLOTTE, N.C.,None — Eli Roe, 4, is too young to understand he has a 90 percent chance of beating the leukemia that's making him sick.

But his mother does.

“So he is scheduled to complete maintenance in November of this year and so we're obviously very excited about that,” she said.

But in the weeks leading up to his next treatment, the drug methotrexate, which could cure him, could run out.

Dr. Derek Raghavan, the president of the Levine Cancer Institute, said the drug is injected into the spinal fluid and it reduces the relapse rate of leukemia in adults and children.

“It actually makes the difference between life and death,” he said.

He said the shortage could lead to more deaths, so they're preparing for the worst.

With no alternative drug approved by the FDA, he and a team of doctors recently formed a committee to brainstorm some sort of solution. That includes drugs used for other illnesses.

“We're using pathways that we don't normally use and frankly, as advocates for our patients, we not at all happy about it,” Raghavan said.

Raghavan calls the entire situation a national disgrace. He said the executive order issued by President Barack Obama in October hasn't made a difference, and said the pharmaceutical companies that make the drug aren't doing their job.

“My fear is that while trying to do the best we can, we may have patients die,” Raghavan said.

So for Eli, whose family has trusted the drug to save their son -- now they're simply hoping he can get it.

“We pray and we wait and we realize there's a lot of this that is out of our control,” his mother said. “And we hope that by the time March 9 comes -- that's when he gets his next dose -- there is some available for him.”

WSOC