Lung cancer patients to be given wonder drug on NHS

HELEN MCARDLE

need for new treatment options for our patients. This welcome positive SMC decision means people are now able to access pembrolizumab when it is right for them, potentially leading to better patient outcomes.”

Incidence of lung cancer in Scotland is among the highest in the world, with about 5,000 cases a year. Non-small cell lung cancer accounts for approximately 85 per cent of lung cancers and is diagnosed at an advanced stage in approximately two-thirds of cases.

Gregor McNie, Cancer Research UK’s senior public affairs manager in Scotland, said: “Scotland is the only part of the UK where lung cancer is the most common cancer. So it’s great news pembrolizumab will be made available for some patients in Scotland with this devastating disease. We have spent many years trying to find better treatments for non-small cell lung cancer, and the chances of survival have been among the poorest of any type of cancer.”

Keytruda is among a new wave of cancer drugs, known as immunotherapy, which fight the disease by supercharging the body’s own natural defences against it. As well as Keytruda, the SMC has also accepted Opdivo – another immunotherapy drug – for routine use on the NHS to treat patients with a highly aggressive blood cancer.

Opdivo, also known as nivolumab, is already available to patients in Scotland with forms of lung cancer, kidney cancer, and advanced melanoma, and is currently being considered for head and neck cancer.

The latest approval will see it offered to adult patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma whose cancer has progressed despite undergoing a stem cell transplant and drug treatment. Previously, patients in this position would have been considered terminally ill. However, in clinical trials Opdivo significantly reduced cancer in more than two-thirds of patients and, in eight per cent of patients, the cancer disappeared.

It is expected six patients in Scotland will be eligible for Opdivo in the first year, rising to 18 by year five.

Dr Pam McKay, consultant haematologist at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, said the decision was “a significant step forward”. She added: “In patients