Outrage as cancer drugs are banned

7:52am Thursday 7th August 2008

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PATIENTS with advanced kidney cancer were dealt a devastating blow last night when spending watchdogs effectively banned four life-giving drugs on the NHS.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) issued draft guidance rejecting the drugs Sutent, Avastin, Nexavar and Torisel as too expensive.

Charities expressed outrage at the decision, saying it left patients only one treatment option – interferon – which is not as effective for many sufferers.

Kathleen Devonport, 65, from Chilton, County Durham, has been taking Sutent for her advanced kidney cancer for ten months.

She said: “I can’t believe it.

This is a terrible decision.

Thanks to Sutent I have been leading a pretty normal life.”

Over the past 18 months, The Northern Echo followed Mrs Devonport’s battle to get access to Sutent as part of our End NHS Injustice campaign.

Last year, NHS officials in the region not only changed their minds about Mrs Devonport but agreed to fund Sutent for anyone needing it.

But if the Nice guidance is finalised, it will mean new patients in the region will be denied access to Sutent as well as Nexavar, a drug which works in a similar way.

The decision also slams the door shut on Richmond kidney cancer patient Barbara Selby, 64, who has spent the past year trying to persuade North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust to fund Sutent.

Mrs Selby said: “I think this decision is disgusting. They wouldn’t say that if they had this cancer themselves.”

Professor John Wagstaff, from the South Wales Cancer Institute, said there was “no point” in him accepting referrals for people with advanced kidney cancer because about 75 per cent of them did not gain any great benefit from interferon.

The only other option was to make patients comfortable in their last months of life.

Broadcaster James Whale, who lost a kidney to cancer in 2000, said the guidance would “mean an early death sentence for many” if it was not revised.

The draft guidance, which is subject to appeal, rejects the drugs, saying they are not cost-effective for patients with advanced and/or metastatic kidney cancer.

The medicines do not cure the cancer but they extend a person’s life by several months.

Patients already on the therapies should continue until they and their doctors consider it appropriate to stop, the guidance says.

Every year, up to 7,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with kidney cancer.

Of these, about 1,700 will be diagnosed with advanced kidney cancer, and at any one time about 3,600 people are living with the advanced form.

Professor Peter Littlejohns, clinical and public health di- Outrage as cancer drugs are banned By Barry Nelson Health Editor barry.nelson@nne.co.uk rector at Nice, said: “The decisions Nice has to make are some of the hardest in public life.

“NHS resources are not limitless, and Nice has to decide what treatments represent best value to the patient as well as the NHS.

“Although these treatments are clinically effective, regrettably, the cost to the NHS is such that they are not a costeffective use of NHS resources.

“Two of the manufacturers have developed proposals which may have the effect of reducing the cost of the drugs.

“We will be happy to consider these proposals once they have been.”

Prof Littlejohns said there were no treatments that reliably cured advanced or metastatic kidney cancer.

“The main objective is to relieve physical symptoms and maintain general functions,”

he said.

“These drugs have the potential to extend progressionfree survival by five to six months, but at a cost of £20,000 to £35,000 per patient per year.”

Prof Wagstaff, who is an honorary consultant in medical oncology at the South Wales Cancer Institute, in Swansea, said: “The possibility that we clinicians may be prevented from offering Sutent is an outrage.

“Sutent produces a remarkable effect on survival for patients.

“It is now no longer ethical or reasonable for patients to have access to treatment with only interferon.

“This decision will mean that the UK will have the poorest survival figures for metastatic renal cell cancer in Europe.”