Clock is ticking (From Penarth Times)

Clock is ticking

A PENARTH woman faces a nerve-wracking wait until Monday when the Vale of Glamorgan Health Board will decide whether her breast cancer can be treated with the drug Herceptin.

Ceinwen Jackson, a lecturer in health issues at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, lives at the Paddocks in Penarth.

She joined breast cancer patient Jayne Sullivan in a vigil at the National Assembly last week, as part of a campaign to make Herceptin available on the NHS to all sufferers of the disease.

Ceinwen said: "My story is not unusual in a time when a postcode lottery exists with regard to health service treatment.

"My tumour has been diagnosed as Her2 positive - which means that it is particularly aggressive.

"The Vale of Glamorgan Health Board meets on Monday to decide if I can be treated with Herceptin, a drug that has proven effective in some trials but is only licenced for the treatment of secondary breast cancer.

"I have been told that I can have Herceptin immediately if I can pay £30,000," she added.

"But who can afford to do that?

"If I am refused adjuvant therapy then I will be demonstrating at the foot of the Aneurin Bevin statue in Queen Street, Cardiff on February 25 with many friends.

"This great Welsh statesman would doubtless be saddened and angry at the state of a health service he initiated in order that the people of Britain could receive medical treatment - in a system not based on whether they can pay cash up front."

On Tuesday, Welsh Assembly members voted to speed up the process of approving new drugs.

The governing Labour group backed a Liberal Democrat motion on speeding up the approval of new drugs on the NHS.

This means women with breast cancer could have the drug - only available in the late stages of the disease - earlier in their treatment.

Some local health boards (LHBs) will fund the drug despite the fact it will not be licensed in the UK to treat early stage breast cancer until March.

Ceinwen said: "While I support any move to speed up the availability of Herceptin, my case has yet to be decided and, until I have something in black and white, my life is hanging in the balance."

Ceinwen has undergone surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy for breast cancer. Her younger sister Denise died of the disease in October 2004.

Herceptin is commonly used to treat advanced breast cancer but is not licensed for early-stage treatment. Research suggests it could prevent tumours recurring.

Local Health Boards have discretion to fund Herceptin for early-stage treatment.

Leanne Ilic-Richards, of the Vale of Glamorgan Local Health Board, said: "The 10 Local Health Boards in South East Wales have agreed that patients who meet the agreed criteria, as determined by their individual clinical oncologist, will receive Herceptin as a first line treatment for the management of their early breast cancer.

"Currently Velindre Cancer Centre are putting arrangements in place to provide this service."

The All Wales Medicine Strategy Group at the Welsh Assembly decided on December 5, 2005, to delay the decision to use Herceptin universally until a license had been granted by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (Nice).

Welsh Health Minister Brian Gibbons said it would be dangerous for him to recommend all health boards provide the treatment because it has not been approved by Nice.