Health Index | Health News & Fitness Guide » cancer drugs

Arthritis drug may be cancer life saver

Alan — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 22:13:35 +0000

There has been a big breakthrough in the battle against cancer, after British scientists discovered that a drug used in the treatment of arthritis sufferers, when combined with another drug, can be used to stop tumours from growing. Scientists at the University of East Anglia have discovered that Leflunomide, used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, when combined with a drug known as simply PLX4720, can prevent tumours from regrowing after they have been reduced or removed.

The University’s Dr Grant Wheeler said that the new drug could be life-changing and this development was very exciting. The drug PLX4720 has been used to treat melanoma (skin cancer) and there has always been a high risk of the cancer returning after treatment. There have been no drugs to date that can prevent this. As these drugs are already on the market, they do not have to go through the kind of rigorous testing that any new drug for that purpose would have to face.

In the UK alone, there are two thousand deaths per annum, as a result of the return of malignant melanomas, after the tumours have initially been removed. Dr Wheeler added that cancer could never completely be eliminated but that more and more treatments are coming onto the market. The new cocktail of drugs could be available in less than three years and, they will be cheap for the NHS to obtain, as the patents on both drugs have now expired.

Cancer sufferer Janet Pearce, from Norfolk, considers that the new drugs will give sufferers a fresh chance of life. The first proper clinical trials are due to start in America in the next six months, so watch this space.

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Asda offer cancer drugs at cost

Alan — Tue, 25 May 2010 05:09:39 +0000

Asda started a new price war on High Street this week by announcing that it will sell cancer drugs without a profit. In response, Superdrug and Sainsbury’s announced that they would also offer the meds at cost. Thus, cancer patients without insurance will now be able to save thousands of pounds starting this week.

Previously, many patients have been forced to shop around for cancer drugs given that the NHS has refused to offer them. In fact, some have suffered given that the meds may be marked up as high as 76% over cost.

This has forced some to take out mortgages or loans in order to pay for their meds which can total up to a few thousand pounds for just one course of treatment of thirty days.

Asda’s announcement casts a new spotlight on Government plans to launch a new fund in April of 2011 that will offer patients the ability to get medicines easier.

At the moment, some cancer drugs that have been proven to help fight cancer have been banned by NHS due to the fact that they are very expensive. In addition, other medicines have been rejected from other trusts funding due to the fact that the NHS has not yet made a decision on their use, which can take up to 18 months until one is announced.

In addition to cancer drugs, Asda will also offer the drug Glivec used to treat leukemia at cost and much cheaper than its competition.

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NHS patients denied cancer drugs

Alan — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 04:52:14 +0000

Conservatives claim that too many NHS patients in England are being denied the use of new cancer drugs.
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow health secretary, stated that doctors should be given a larger role in making the decision over which drugs a patient should be prescribed.

As a result, the Conservative party is calling for manufacturers to reduce prices on drugs so that better deals will be available to patients. However, the medicine advisory body of the Government also recommended that the pricing is aimed at drugs that have clinical evidence behind them showing which patients will most likely benefit from their usage.

In a response, the Department of Health stated that the analysis provided by the Conservatives was misleading and selective.
A spokesman for the department stated that cancer is hard to beat and frightening to have so it is important that a complete approach is taken and not a selective approach when presenting the facts.

The Tories added that they would like to see a shift in the way that decisions are made within the medical community into doctors’ hands and out of NHS cost factors.

Lansley said that the country has reached a point where people known that there are certain new medicines that can improve a cancer prognosis and treatment plan and those drugs need to be more widely available through the NHS.

However, Sir Andrew Dillon of the National Institute of Health and Clinical Evidence, state that it would be wrong to provide these drugs to those where the benefit is still a question.

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