NICE’s Ovarian Cancer Guideline Rejects Three Drugs, but Recommends Two.
The National Institute for Health and Care excellence have drafted guidelines for the treatment of recurrent ovarian cancer, which recommend two therapies for NHS use but have also rejected a further three drugs.
The Institute recommends paclitaxel and pegylated liposomal doxorubicin hydrochloride (Jansen-Cilag’s Caelyx) as options for treating the disease if it prevails after chemotherapy. Both were suggested either as monotherapies or in combination with platinum.
However, the guidelines also rejected gemcitabine, topotecan and trabectedin (PharmaMar’s Yondelis) to treat the first recurrence of platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer, although topotecan was provisionally turned down for treating cancer that has returned within six months of treatment with a platinum-based regimen or cancer which did not respond to platinum treatment at all.
“NICE makes difficult decisions to ensure that people using the NHS get access to the most cost-effective treatments, and to help the NHS to share its resources fairly,” said Meindert Boysen, the Institute’s Programme Director of Appraisals.
The independent committee found the evidence on gemcitabine, topotecan and trabectedin “indicated that they didn’t provide enough extra health benefit for the cost to the NHS”.