Patients with an aggressive form of leukaemia will benefit from new ‘life-extending’ cancer treatment available on the NHS.
The new targeted treatment, quizartinib, can now be prescribed to patients diagnosed with a specific type of leukaemia, boosting their chance of remission and long-term survival.
Professor Peter Johnson, NHS national clinical director for cancer, said: ‘The NHS in England has enviable track record of making innovative treatments available and this is the latest in a long list of new cancer drugs to help people to live with and beyond cancer, making life-changing differences to people affected by cancer and their families across the country.’
Around 3,100 people are diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in the UK annually. This type of cancer aggressively interferes with blood production, leaving the body open to often fatal infections but, with effective treatment, patients can go into remission and in some cases be cured.
The UK’s medicines regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, noted that patients receiving quizartinib had a median overall survival of 31.9 months compared to 15.1 months for those receiving the placebo. The median survival rate marks the point at which half of the patients had survived in trials.
The once-a-day tablet will be offered to adults as part of initial treatment alongside chemotherapy, and then for a further 3 years as a maintenance treatment to reduce the likelihood of cancer relapses.
Helen Knight, director of medicines evaluation at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, said: ‘This is a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer with few treatment options. Patients tell us that existing treatments can be very gruelling and that more options would be welcome. I am therefore delighted we can recommend it for use on the NHS as a further treatment option that could give people more precious time with their loved ones.’