NICE recommends cutting-edge therapy for young people with blood cancer

16 Nov 2018 01:01 PM

NICE has recommended a pioneering cancer treatment, CART-cell therapy, for people under the age of 25 with leukaemia.

Young people with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) will now have access to tisagenlecleucel, also known as Kymriah made by Novartis, through the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF).

Children and young people at this stage of their disease have usually undergone repeated cycles of treatment, which can have significant psychological and physical effects and s poor outcomes.

Tisagenlecleucel will be offered to people under the age of 25 who have not responded to current treatment or who have relapsed after stem cell transplant.

Cutting-edge therapy

The therapy, which involves taking a person’s own immune cells and modifying them to fight their cancer cells, has the potential to be a cure.

Around 25 to 30 people will be eligible for tisagenlecleucel each year in England and a specialised NHS service is being developed to manage access to the new therapy.

NHS England are preparing to make tisagenlecleucel available in the coming weeks.