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
Dichloroacetate (DCA) has been found to shrink tumors "in vivo" in rats, and has a plausible scientific mechanism: DCA appears to reactivate suppressed mitochondria in some types of oxygen-starved tumor cells, and thus promotes apoptosis. Because it was tested for other conditions, DCA is known to be relatively safe, available, and inexpensive, and it can be taken by mouth as a pill, which is convenient. Five patients with brain cancer have been treated with DCA in a clinical trial, and the authors say that the lives of four were 'probably' extended. However, without a large controlled trial it is impossible to say whether the drug is truly effective against cancer.