BREAST CANCER DRUG VICTORY ; Landmark Case Gives Access to Costly Treatment

By MARK PRIGG; REBECCA SMITH

THOUSANDS of cancer sufferers were today given hope of receiving NHS treatment rejected as too expensive.

It comes after a nurse with breast cancer won her battle to be supplied with vital drugs by her health authority.

Barbara Clark, 49, was due to take legal action in an attempt to get the drug Herceptin after she faced the prospect of having to sell her home to pay privately for a course of the treatment. The mother of two was considering using the Human Rights Act to force the NHS to give her the drug.

She put her case to officials and experts from the Somerset Coast Primary Care Trust on Friday and it ruled today that she can now receive the treatment.

Ms Clark had promised to take the landmark case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if she had been turned down. She was too ill to comment on today’s decision due to the chemotherapy treatment she is receiving.

But family friend Ed Boyle said: “Barbara is absolutely delighted that the authorities have seen sense and seen her argument.

“She now hopes that this treatment will be extended to other women in her position.” Experts have described the availability of the drug in Britain as a “postcode lottery”, as some areas

supply the drug freely to women who are at an advanced stage, while others do not. In the South-East only 33.5 per cent of women with cancer at an advanced stage receive the drug.

Charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer claims more than 3,000 women are being unfairly denied the drug.

However, it is believed the drug could now be made much more widely available to women in similar situations to Ms Clark who comes from Bridgwater in Somerset. She was denied the drug because her condition was not considered terminal.

Herceptin is already widely used for women with advanced breast cancer but has not yet received a licence for use in women in the early stages of the disease.

Some doctors may choose to prescribe Herceptin for these women but effectively do so at their own risk in a practice called “off licence prescribing”.

The makers of Herceptin are confident the drug will soon be licensed for early breast cancer.

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has already signalled that she expects the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to rule on its use across the NHS shortly afterwards.