A KIDNEY cancer sufferer has vowed to continue his fight for life-extending drugs to be made available on the NHS.

Clive Stone, 61, from Freeland, near Witney, has endured four major operations in two years to combat the disease.

Mr Stone set up the group Justice for Kidney Cancer Patients last year in the face of Oxfordshire NHS Primary Care Trust’s refusal to prescribe the drug Sunitinib.

The PCT said it was following the guidance of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), which intially ruled the drug was too expensive for prescription on the NHS.

Oxfordshire maintained this stance even though other NHS trusts were making the drug available on prescription.

However, in February Nice overturned its initial guidance and Oxfordshire PCT agreed to prescribe the drug as a first-line treatment for kidney cancer cases where doctors said it would be an effective treatment.

Mr Stone and his fellow campaigners heralded the move as a victory but he says he will keep up the fight until three more drugs – Bevacizumab, Sorafenib and Temsirolimus – are also made available on the NHS to kidney cancer sufferers.

He also wants Sunitinib to be made available as a second-line treatment – meaning it would be prescribed if a patient failed to respond to their first-line treatment.

Mr Stone said: “We’re very pleased with what’s happened. However, we want to give oncologists more flexibility, as they might need to use a combination of the drugs.

“We will fight on. All kidney cancer patients have the right to the best possible treatment and the best possible drugs.”

Only three out of 30 applications for Sunitinib had been granted by Oxfordshire PCT between summer 2006 and the start of this year, in what it described as “exceptional circumstances”.

In February, Nice issued draft guidance saying that Bevacizumab, Sorafenib and Temsirolimus were inappropriate for prescription on the NHS.

A final decision on whether it will recommend the drugs are routinely prescribed is expected in June.

Mr Stone, who has been told he will need to begin Sunitinib treatment in the next few months, because the cancer has spread to his lungs and liver, said: “There are four kidney cancer drugs and we have got half of one.

“We don’t want to appear greedy, but we want Sunitinib as a second-line treatment and the best of the rest. We need to keep up the pressure on Nice – oncologists need to have a full armoury.”

Nice spokesman Gregory Jones said patients who were being treated by kidney cancer drugs such as Interferon-alfa and Interleukin-2 prior to the ruling on Sunitinib as a first-line treatment were eligible to receive the drug, so they were not “disadvantaged”.

But he added: “If a patient does not respond to Interferon, the evidence suggests they will also not respond to Sunitinib.

“That’s why we have only recommended Sunitinib as a first-line treatment option where the benefits of the treatment are most clearly evident.”

Oxfordshire PCT spokesman Annika Howard said: “Bevacizumab, Sorafenib or Temsirolimus are currently being appraised by Nice.

“In the absence of guidance, following our normal procedures, we will consider individual requests for funding as an exception.

“In the past year, we have not received any such requests.”