Treatment can lead to years free of disease

Mar 1 2008 by Audrey Barton, The Journal

PATIENTS with a common cancer of the lymphatic system are set to benefit from a new treatment approach allowing them to manage their disease as a chronic condition, thanks to new national guidance.

The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (Nice) has issued guidance expanding the drug rituximab to be used for patients with non- Hodgkins lymphoma who have had a relapse.

Until the decision this week, the drug has only been funded on the NHS for patients as a first-line treatment with chemotherapy.

The decision means patients in whom the cancer has returned can have the drug which is known to prevent the cancer coming back for up to four years, as maintenance therapy.

This is an important breakthrough as it represents a new treatment approach that can allow patients with this potentially fatal disease to manage it as a chronic condition and live for an average of over four years before the disease returns.

Dr Graham Jackson, consultant haematologist at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, said: “When people are told they have cancer, they think they are in serious trouble and may die tomorrow.

“Treating it as a longer-term condition means patients have many years when they are fit and well and don’t need treatment.”

Each year there are over 5,200 new cases of non- Hodgkins lymphoma in men and 4,700 cases in women in the country. The incidence is rising by 3-7% a year.

If the number of cases continues to increase at the current rate, the condition will have an incidence in the UK similar to that of breast, colon, lung and skin cancer by the year 2025.