Daily Mail (KC) 01-Jun-08
From Kidney Cancer Resource
Go To Daily Mail (KC)
New drug gives thousands of kidney cancer sufferers new hope at £2,000 a month
A drug costing £2,000 a month could offer hope to thousands of kidney cancer patients in the UK, researchers say.
Sutent is the first new treatment for advanced forms of the disease in 30 years. It is taken as a pill and has few unpleasant side-effects.
In a trial, patients with kidney cancer typically had their lives extended by more than six months by the drug. And in 11 cases, patients went into complete remission.
Such a response can signify a cure, although there is still a chance of the disease returning.
Sutent is one of a new class of multi-targeted anti-cancer drugs.
It contains a number of 'warheads' which attack the disease in different ways, preventing the tumour growing and cutting off its blood supply.
The Health Service 'rationing' watchdog Nice will now be under pressure to approve Sutent for patients with advanced kidney cancer-However, it could be put off by the £2,000-a-month price tag.
In an attempt to ease the burden, the drug's maker, Pfizer, is offering the first month of treatment free.
More than 7,000 Britons are diagnosed with kidney cancer each year. Because the disease is hard to spot in its early stages, many are already seriously ill by the time they seek treatment.
The cancer causes around 3,600 deaths a year, and until now treatment options for advanced cases have been extremely limited.
Results from the Sutent trial were presented yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.
Researchers found that patients receiving the new drug survived 26.4 months on average after diagnosis, compared with 20 months for patients on the standard therapy.
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