The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is publishing a final draft appraisal on the use of three types of aromatase inhibitors in postmenopausal women with early breast cancer.

The drugs reduce the risk of tumours spreading after surgery and could benefit thousands of women with hormone-receptor-positive early breast cancer.

More than 41,000 women a year receive a diagnosis of breast cancer, with about 80 per cent of cases occurring in postmenopausal women. It claims 13,000 lives annually.

The drugs are Arimidex (anastrozole), Femara (letrozole) and Aromasin (exemestane) and will be available on the NHS alongside the “gold standard” drug tamoxifen. The final guidance is still subject to appeal, but is unlikely to be stopped at this stage.

Campaigners have been calling for the treatment to be fast-tracked for approval after inhibitors were shown to be more effective than tamoxifen. All three inhibitors are available on the NHS in Scotland, but not England and Wales.

Revelations about the “postcode lottery” of cancer drugs, highlighted by The Times last year, prompted NICE to devise a fast-track programme for the development of advice to the NHS on important new drugs and health technologies.

Clinicians welcomed the preliminary guidance as the beginning of a new era for breast cancer care.

The inhibitors stop the natural production of oestrogen — the hormone responsible for the growth and recurrence of many breast cancers.

A study co-ordinated by Cancer Research UK in 2004 indicated that patients who switched from tamoxifen to Aromasin halfway through treatment reduced the risk of the disease returning by a third.

In June the landmark Intergroup Exemestane Study also found that switching to Aromasin cut the risk of death by 17 per cent compared with remaining on tamoxifen. The results were for women who had completed two to three years of tamoxifen therapy.

A trial with Arimidex immediately after surgery suggested an extra 26 per cent cut in cancer recurrence on top of the 50 per cent reduction provided by tamoxifen.

Femara has also been shown to be more effective than tamoxifen in a number of studies.

The Government has made clear that doctors should not wait for NICE guidance to complete all its stages before prescribing such drugs to women.

Sarah Rawlings, from Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said that the charity was delighted at the release of the draft final recommendations.

“New treatment options like these are an important addition to the armoury of therapies available to treat women with the disease, making a real difference in increasing disease-free survival,” she said.

The guidance comes after court battles over access to the breast cancer drug Herceptin on the NHS. NICE issued guidance recommending its use on the NHS last month.The drug is effective on the HER2-positive type of the disease, which affects about 20 to 25 per cent of women with a recent diagnosis of breast cancer. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine in October indicated that Herceptin cut the risk of disease returning in women with early-stage HER2 positive cancer by 46 per cent.

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