National Institute for Health and Care Excellence
Approved cancer drugs and treatments such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy are funded by the NHS without any financial contribution being taken from the patient. Where NICE has approved a treatment, the NHS must fund it. But not all treatments have been assessed by NICE and these treatments are usually dependent on local NHS decision making. In the case of cancer the Cancer Drugs Fund was set up in 2011 after complaints about NICE decisions on new and expensive cancer drugs with limited benefits. Treatment for fertility problems are approved but not always funded by clinical commissioning groups and they may cap the number of rounds.
Experimental cancer treatment
High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is still in investigatory phases in many places around the world. In China it has CFDA approval and over 180 treatment centres have been established in China, Hong Kong, and Korea. HIFU has been successfully used to treat cancer to destroy tumours of the bone, brain, breast, liver, pancreas, rectum, kidney, testes, and prostate. Several thousand patients have been treated with various types of tumours. HIFU has CE approval for palliative care for bone metastasis. Experimentally, palliative care has been provided for cases of advanced pancreatic cancer. High-energy therapeutic ultrasound could increase higher-density anti-cancer drug load and nanomedicines to target tumor sites by 20x fold higher than traditional target cancer therapy.