Medical gift
New treatment is approved
SCOTLAND was the only part of the UK where pembrolizumab was not being used to treat stage-three melanoma.
So it’s great news that this lifechanging treatment will be made available for some NHS patients with this devastating disease.
Melanoma is the deadliest type of skin cancer and about 1400 cases were diagnosed in Scotland in 2016. Up until yesterday, patients only had access to “watch and wait” surveillance after surgery. This decision means hundreds of Scots will have a better experience at the most worrying times of their lives.
What a perfect present to mark Skin Cancer Awareness Month.
A NEW drug which will give hope to patients with melanoma was yesterday approved for use by the Scottish Medicines Consortium.
Scotland had been the only home nation not to have given pembrolizumab the nod. But the treatment will now be given after surgery to adults with stage three melanoma involving lymph nodes – potentially improving outcomes by reducing risk of their disease recurring.
Until now, the standard of care was routine surveillance – “watch and wait” – which can have a huge impact on patients’ mental wellbeing, with no “active” treatment option and concern about the risk of their cancer returning or progressing. The decision comes in Skin Cancer Awareness Month.
Donald McLellan, 57, a retired police officer from Duntocher, Clydebank, experienced the “watch and wait” approach after he had surgery to remove an aggressive melanoma.
Five years on, Donald doesn’t know if he’ll still meet the criteria for the drug but he said: “It is just important and welcome that other people will have access to it.”