According to their current protocol, NHS England has chosen not to fund a potentially life-prolonging treatment planned by NHS doctors for a type of eye cancer. Chemosaturation signifies the saltation of cancer, as it would then be called in layman's terms, which involves reaching an advanced, metastatic state of disease where it is now affecting the liver.
Hannah Quigley McKie from Trafford states, "I am not ready to give up on watching young ones grow up," whereby ocular melanoma-a, as detected by an eye examination, is one sunlight-as-relatively-common eye cancer found in America. Less than half of such patients develop metastases to the liver with poor prognosis.
During general anesthesia, the liver is temporarily isolated, flooded with a drug, and lifted off circulation so that the rest of the body is not subjected to the drug, hence reducing side effects.
He was one of the patients whose ordeal BBC North West reported on over a year ago. Other patients included Craig Shore from Glossop, where he was raising funds for chemosaturation. Now, having diagnosed nine tumors in him, he claims this was reduced to two tumors, which are currently stable, since he underwent three rounds of treatment. But the risks of this therapy can be dangerous because of the spillages of this powerful drug into the rest of the body.
Evidence suggested that it was a relatively reasonable outcome, but it was thus conveyed to patients that serious complications were a reality: the risks were thus identified to them. Reevaluation seems imperative about the outcome. Consequently, NHS England rejected the drug as per NICE's guidelines for routine NHS funding. However, NICE mentioned that the risk seemed to fall as the techniques were perfected and would reconsider it in April 2024—but again never did so. This followed a very long time of Labradorite pressure and campaigns from charities before NHS England finally told BBC North West it would be reviewing the recent evidence to determine whether a policy shift would be necessary.
Now into her second completely private course at the Christie Hospital, she is already fundraising for her next two. "I know tons, loads of fundraisers have been put together by people for me: from football tournaments to party boats to raffles, and all have raised quite a good amount in range. We are really thankful," she said. "There is evidence for this that shows it works. It is just a question of giving people the chance to try it."
An NHS spokesperson said, "NHS England is reviewing the latest evidence on chemosaturation to determine whether there should be any alteration to the current policy, which would lead to clear clinical benefit for patients."