Mother’s joy as new drug treatment for children offered on the NHS

THE MOTHER of a young Leeds boy who said she was left with no choice but to fundraise for his cancer treatment has spoken of her joy that it will now be available on the NHS.

Stacey Worsley, whose son Toby Nye was diagnosed with neuroblastoma on his fourth birthday, said it was “amazing” other families would not have to raise thousands of pounds to pay for antibody therapy, after the drug ‘dinutuximab beta’ was recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) under final draft guidance published today.

Leeds United fan Toby, now five, has just finished the treatment, which has cleared his bone marrow of cancer, after readers and the club supported his family’s campaign to raise £200,000 to pay for it.

Miss Worsley, of Osmondthorpe, told The Yorkshire Post: “I think it is absolutely amazing that other children will now be able to get it and they won’t have to do what we had to.”

NICE has recommended the drug be used for the treatment of high-risk neuroblastoma. It said the “potential survival gain” offered by its use was “substantial”.

Neuroblastoma develops from nerve cells left behind from a baby’s development in the womb. It affects 100 children each year in the UK.