'My dad needs cancer drug ban lifted now'

A SWANSEA woman says plans to lift a ban on a drug that could give her dad extra time with his family need to come into force now — rather than next year.

Joanne Popham has warned that making the kidney cancer drug Sutent available on the NHS would next year could be too little too late.

Her dad Paul Popham, of Ullswater Crescent, Morriston, has been given less than nine months to live after being told chemotherapy would do nothing to tackle his kidney cancer.

Despite his daughter managing to raise a 7,516-name petition calling for Sutent to be available free for patients and lobbying Swansea Local Health Board to fund her dad's treatment — his case was rejected.

Jane Harrison, medical director of Swansea Local Health Board, in a letter to Mr Popham's consultant John Wagstaff, said: "Based on this assessment, the panel felt it could not fund the use of sunitinib (Sutent) as the evidence was too weak for reasonable conclusions to be reached at present."

But although sources at government watchdog National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) say Sutent will be given the green light when its appraisal committee holds its final meeting to discuss the drug on January 14, Miss Popham said her 63-year-old dad needed the drug now.

She said: "It's far too little too late. Nice did promise the treatment would be available in August — is it really going to be available in January?

"It is all great and wonderful if it happens but my father is suffering today. Why can't it be made available today?"

The 39-year-old said her dad had even considered funding his treatment by remortgaging the family home, as the drug costs around £30,000 a year.

Cancer specialists believe the drug could benefit about half of the 7,000 people a year who are diagnosed with kidney cancer and prolong their lives.

Mr Popham first started to suffer kidney failure problems back in 1979, but in 2005 he was told he had a cancerous tumour on his kidney and in August of this year it had emerged it had spread.

A spokeswoman for Nice said the organisation was looking again at the drug because "there was more evidence submitted during a couple of periods of the appraisal process by manufacturers, which needs to be discussed by the (appraisal) committee.

"We will publish a next draft within four weeks of the meeting in January and issue final guidance in March 2009," she added.