HEALTH officials were last night urged to fast-track approval for a groundbreaking breast cancer drug after new research indicated that it far outperformed the Government’s recommended treatment.

Research in the New England Journal of Medicine found that patients given Femara stood a 30 per cent greater chance of avoiding a recurrence of the disease than those taking tamoxifen. Femara is still awaiting appraisal by English regulators even though the treatment is already available to patients in Scotland.

Campaigners have warned ministers that women will die needlessly while waiting for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to give clearance for new treatments such as Femara, which at the moment is severely restricted in England. Each year 32,000 women in Britain develop breast cancer.

In trials when compared with tamoxifen, the standard drug used to treat breast cancer sufferers after they have had surgery, Femara did significantly better. The results were particularly good for women at higher risk, reducing by almost a third the chance of disease returning.

NICE guidance, which recommends the drugs that should be used by the NHS, is not due to be published until November. A spokesman for NICE said: “There is no restriction on prescribing this drug in the absence of guidance. Local NHS organisations need to carry out an assessment of the data available to them before making a decision.”

Access to the drug and its two close cousins, Aromasin and Arimidex, varies widely around the country. A survey by The Times of the country’s 32 cancer networks, conducted in September, found striking disparities, with some trusts offering drugs wherever suitable, others effectivly “rationing” them, and some not offering them at all.

Several networks, which can each represent more than a dozen health trusts, said that Femara (letrozole), Arimidex (anastrozole) and Aromasin (exemestane) were offered only if patients could not tolerate tamoxifen. All three newer drugs are members of the class called aromatase inhibitors, which control hormone-sensitive cancers by stopping natural production of oestrogen.

The success of the new Femara trial has led the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, which licenses drugs, to approve it three months earlier than expected for the post- surgery treatment of early breast cancer. Femara, Arimidex and Aromasin are all available in Scotland already.

Jenny Whelan, acting head of the charity Cancer BACUP, said: “We have to speed up the way new cancer treatments are assessed.”

The warning comes in the wake of public anger over the “postcode lottery” of access to another breast cancer drug, Herceptin, after it was shown to be a highly effective medication for women with tumours of a certain genetic profile. Nigel Bundred, Professor in Surgical Oncology at Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester, said the newly published results for Femara were “fantastic news and give hope to women with breast cancer — especially those at high risk of their cancer recurring”.

Liz Caroll, head of clinical services at Breast Cancer Care, said the data lent further support to the need for widespread use of aromatase inhibitors. “These results further suggest the benefits of using aromatase inhibitors over tamoxifen in treating early invasive breast cancer and indicate that many more lives could be saved.”

The trial, a comparison of Femara with tamoxifen involving more than 8,000 women, showed a 29 per cent reduction in recurrence with Femara, compared with tamoxifen, for women with breast cancer that had spread to lymph nodes. These are patients at highest risk of breast cancer recurrence.

The trial, conducted by the International Breast Cancer Study Group, showed that in all women taking Femara, there was a 27 per cent reduction in the risk of cancer spreading to other parts of the body and a significant reduction (19 per cent) in the risk of breast cancer returning, when compared with tamoxifen patients.

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