LONDON (AFP) — Patients suffering from advanced kidney cancer may be denied access to four treatments by the NHS under new proposals on Thursday.
The drugs - Avastin (bevacizumab), Nexavar (sorafenib), Sutent (sunitinib) and Torisel (temsirolimus) in spite of providing "significant gains" in survival were rejected by the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence as they did not offer value for money.
"NICE has to decide what treatments represent best value to the patient as well as the NHS," said Professor Peter Littlejohns, the clinical and public health director of NICE.
"Although these treatments are clinically effective, regrettably, the cost to the NHS is such that they are not a cost-effective use of NHS resources," he added.
The proposals may effect more than 7,000 people diagnosed with kidney cancer annually in Britain, out of which 1,700 suffer from the advanced stage of the disease.
The draft guidance for England and Wales also said that people already under therapy should continue until it is considered appropriate to stop.
The NHS in Scotland has already rejected three of the drugs, except temsirolimus while a decision is yet to be taken in Northern Ireland.
Charities reacted with outrage to the draft guidelines saying it left patients with only one treatment - interferon - to which a lot of them may not respond.
Experts said that albeit the fact these medicines do not cure cancer entirely they can help extend a patients' life by a matter of few months.
"This decision once again raises questions about whether NICE's system of appraisal is appropriate for all types of drugs," said Professor Peter Johnson, from Cancer Research UK.
"Although we understand that NICE often has to make difficult decisions, in this case there is a clear separation between what NICE finds to be valuable treatment, and clinical and patient opinion," he added.
Professor John Wagstaff from the South Wales Cancer Institute similarly expressed his displeasure.
"The possibility that we clinicians may be prevented from offering Sutent to our patients is an outrage and a devastating blow to the kidney cancer community," he said.
Wagstaff added that there will be no point in him accepting referrals of patients with metastatic renal cell cancer as three quarters of patients did do not gain any real benefit from interferon.
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