Saturday 15 November 2014

Not so 'NICE'

 Nice has published their preliminary decision, NOT to allow collagenase (Xiapex) injections on the NHS, because their calculations said it is more expensive than surgery and the results may not last as long. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/indevelopment/gid-tag364
 The fact that the recovery is quicker, there is less chance of infection and less pain afterwards, it can be done without general anaesthetic (GA) whereas a lot of surgeons give a GA for surgery, it does not cause as much scarring so can be repeated easier than surgery.. All that did not make any difference, it is definitely more costly than needle release and marginally more so than fasciectomy (open surgery), especially if you assume all surgey is done under local anaesthetic as day case and because on average 1.1 vials of collagenase are needed you don't say that is eleven vials per 10 patients but you call it two per patient. We don't have much time to react to this statement (untill 28th November) , so please read through it and email or message us on Facebook wtih your comments. We need patients who are willing to be interviewed to explain to the media why they might prefert operations to surgery (not difficult to fathom!) so if you feel you can help: anna@dupuytrens-society.org.uk.
 Pretty please with sugar on people!
 I will be putting together a comment for NICE, and a press release that we will try to get on some news sites (how?)
 The fight continues, I know patients want a choice, not just to be told 'you need surgery!'

1 comment:

  1. Doesn't surgery cause a proliferation of the disease? That's what make Xiaflex so important.

    ReplyDelete