Breast Cancer: Radiotherapy

(asked on 20th February 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he plans to make intraoperative radiotherapy for breast cancer available on the NHS.


Answered by
 Portrait
David Mowat
This question was answered on 24th February 2017

Immunotherapy is a rapidly emerging field which encompasses a wide number of different treatment technologies, including the use of vaccines. The use of vaccines as a treatment for cancer is already established within routine clinical practice. An example of this is the use of the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine to treat bladder cancer. NHS England has a well-established process for considering new treatments and would welcome new proposals. Details of the policy process can be found at:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/key-docs/

The use of Intraoperative Radiotherapy is currently being considered by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for the treatment of early breast cancer through a Multi-Technology Appraisal (MTA). NICE recently commenced public consultation on its draft findings which can be found at:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/indevelopment/GID-TAG353/consultation/html-content

The consultation is due to be completed on 1 March 2017, with a committee hearing scheduled to take place on 9 March 2017. All commissioners are mandated to implement published final MTA findings.

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