More NICE guidelines out or in the process of coming out:
Eribulin not cost effective as a third line treatment
guidance.nice.org.uk/TA250
Xeloda and Avastin
“Have your say on preliminary recommendations that say that bevacizumab in combination with capecitabine is not recommended, within its licensed indication, for the first-line treatment of metastatic breast cancer”.
Don’t know if this means it won’t be recommended at all or just as a first line. Avastin is still pretty pricy - £242.66 for 100mg
At this rate, I kind of feel like I will be in a box before some new treatment options come through. Bad day. Up most of the night worrying about 3am stuff 
I agree it is worrying that nice seem to cutting down our options-I have already worked my way through a couple so would like to think there are still options for further down the line.
I had this discussion with my MP recently.I really cannot understand why so much time,money and energy is spent on research if nice come along and say oh no you can’t have that, it isn’t economic.
I would like to think my life is worth something and hope the treatments I need remain available.
L xx
Totally agree. This country is putting money before lives.
The news recently reported that scientists have discovered that Breast Cancer has ten genetic sub types, and in the future, doctors will be able to analyse tissue from a patients cancer and predict how it will behave, and what treatments will work. Sounds great doesn’t it? Trouble is it costs a couple of thousand to do a genetic profile on a tumour, and the Government wont put up the money.
See this article:
bbc.co.uk/news/health-16725032
This Country is becoming a joke. Cyberknife is a case in point. The NRIG has said that if available it could save the life of 3000 cancer patients per year, but only 28 out of 150 PCT’s fund it, the Government has said it wont set a national tariff until 2014, and the NHS has just three machines, and can only treat patients who have sympathetic PCT’s. Meanwhile a poor country like Turkey has six machines, and anyone who needs it, gets it. It’s time cancer patients got together and made a fuss.
Eribulin is available on the cancer drugs fund (I’ve just started it after my oncologist got the funding) which is, I think, open for all oncologists to apply for if they think there is a chance it will work for you. This is m 7th chemo in 3 years so mine obv thinks its worth CDF investing £60k on. Think the same is true of avastin too
Can you get the genetic testing done privately? Do you need tissue to be kept / stored from your surgery for best results? Is this the dx oncogene test (is that the right name?)
Ten types of cancer - my understanding is that any testing would be done on a biopsy sample, to establish something about the molecular nature of the cell membrane to give precise information for future EFFECTIVE treatment, and some of this treatment could be less invasive rather than the blunt hammer approach of current chemo regimes. After all, we are some way on with this - different chemos, tamoxifen vs aromatase inhibitors etc. I don’t think its an actual gene profile test that’s required, it’s testing for chemicals in the cells that the various gene codes produce. And surely the NHS would spend some money on this if it means less money would then be spent on individual treatments, so the available cash will go further. The real progress is that treatments can be much more specific and tailored to each patient.
or perhaps I’ve got it wrong???
grumpy
Grumpy, Im not saying you are wrong. I think molecular biology and genetic profiling overlap. But my understanding is that doctors would have to do a complete genetic profile on cancer cells.
I recently spoke to one of the doctors involved in the research, and she said that they once thought that tumours metastasized to areas of the body in a completely random way, but they now know that cancer cells are genetically pre-programmed to behave in a certain way. By estabishing the genetics of a cancer cell they will be able to predict how it will behave and what treatments would work best. But this requires genetic profiling of cancer cells, which costs quite a bit to do, and the Government are reluctant to spend the money. Please read the the article I referred to in my earlier post, as it will give you more info.