SURGERY to remove tumours from the brains of Oxfordshire cancer sufferers is not a high priority for health chiefs.

At the moment, if cancer spreads to the brain, patients are treated by neurosurgery, where the head is opened up and tumour removed.

When cancer spreads to the brain it is called ‘cerebral metastases’ and it is common in the end stages of the disease.

But a committee made up of health bosses from Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire, have decided the surgery should be a low priority for funding.

In a policy statement, the South Central Priorities Committee, which decides which treatments will be routinely funded in the areas, said there was a lack of clinical effectiveness for the surgery.

Across the four counties more than 120 patients have had the surgery in the past three years. The figures are not broken down by county.

Although a final decision is yet to be taken, the committee has recommended patients are not offered the treatment beyond April 2011.

Patients in the North East are still receiving the treatment indefinitely.

Last night a cancer patient who believes he owes his life to the surgery said it was a case of a postcode lottery for Oxfordshire cancer patients.

Campaigner and Oxford Mail columnist Clive Stone was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2007. In August he was admitted to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital for surgery on a tumour, after it was discovered the cancer had spread to his brain.

He said: “I woke up and found I couldn’t move my left arm. It was flailing around. I also couldn’t move my left leg.”

He was taken immediately by ambulance to the JR where experts confirmed he had a tumour the size of his thumbnail on his brain.

It was while at the hospital he discovered the treatment looked likely to be cut from next year.

Mr Stone said: “Cerebral metastases can happen not just in kidney cancer patients, but in lung and breast cancer sufferers too.

“This could affect a lot of people.

“If I hadn’t had the surgery I would have been a goner for sure.

“I know this problem will come back one day.

“To think the next time it does, I may not be able to have the surgery, is just too much to think about.”

A spokesman for the NHS Specialised Commissioning Group, which funds the surgery, said it was awaiting more evidence before a final decision is taken next year.

He added: “A final decision regarding this report was deferred until early 2011 while the committee waits for the outcome of an audit of surgical outcome at Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust and Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust.”