Roche survey shows cancer postcode prescribing continues
pharmafile | October 29, 2003 | News story | |Â Â Â
A new UK-wide survey by Roche has shown a third of breast cancer patients who could benefit from its NICE-approved drug Herceptin are being denied access to it.
NICE recommended the drug in March 2002, giving NHS cancer networks three months to follow its mandatory guidance to prescribe the drug to eligible patients.
Roche's remarkable audit found variations in access to the drug in England, Scotland and Wales, with just 14% of women eligible for treatment receiving the drug in the worst-hit region, the Midlands.
This figure rises to 20% in Scotland, 28% in the North/North-East and just over 47% in London. Even in the best uptake area the South West, 29% of eligible patients were not receiving the drug.
The figures mean that over 1,000 breast cancer patients across the country are being denied the drug, which generally means patients experience fewer side-effects associated with traditional chemotherapy such as hair loss, bone marrow suppression and severe vomiting.
Herceptin (trastuzumab) is a targeted cancer therapy but only works in women who carry the HER2 gene. It is frequently the lack of diagnostic testing for the gene which prevents women from receiving the drug.
Roche passed its findings onto charity CancerBACUP, which is calling on the government to make sure the new watchdog the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection (CHAI) enforces NICE guidelines.
CancerBACUP chief executive Joanne Rule said: "The Department of Health is unable to supply figures on the uptake of NICE-recommended drugs, a situation we have been critical of for some time. We believe the DoH should fulfil this function. It's silly that the only way the NHS knows what's being prescribed is if the manufacturers tell them. Tesco doesn't have to ask Heinz to know how many cans of beans are being sold!"
Ian Gibson MP, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer added his voice to the charity call for greater monitoring, saying: "It's time for the government to get rough and tough with cancer service providers. People deserve to have all the facts at their fingertips."
The release of the data comes just days before the Britain Against Cancer conference, and also follows the publication of statistics showing cancer survival rates in the UK are some of the worst in Europe.
Roche carried out its Herceptin Audit by comb-ining data from a number of sources. The company collected prescribing data for the three months before NICE guidance, and then every subsequent quarter. Sales information by region was then compared to epidemiology figures for advanced breast cancer published by the Office of National Statistics, Cancer Research UK (2003), which was validated by independent market research.
One in five women with the disease would be HER2 positive and would benefit from Herceptin. Clinicians advised Roche that 20% of breast cancer patients were likely to be unfit for any treatment, a figure which was also validated by independent market research.
