A MEDIC who is arguably the world's leading authority on kidney cancer says North-East health bosses got it wrong by restricting access to a lifesaving drug.

Last month, the North-East and Cumbria Cancer Drug Approvals Group reversed its decision to refuse funding for the new kidney cancer drug Sutent, after considering the latest available evidence.

However, while it means new patients will be able to get the £3,000-a-month drug, existing patients, who have been on other cancer drugs such as Interferon, will not be able to get Sutent.

But Dr Bob Motzer, a consultant cancer specialist at the world-renowned Sloan-Kettering Cancer Research Centre, in New York, whose extensive research into the use of Sutent was actually quoted by the Newcastle-based drug approvals group, has criticised the group's advice.

Dr Motzer read the scientific paper prepared for the North-East group after it was emailed to him by Bill Bro, chief executive of the Kidney Cancer Association of America.

Mr Bro was sent the paper by UK campaigner Rose Woodward, who runs the Kidney Cancer Patient Support Group.

In an email to Ms Woodward, Dr Motzer said there was "no question" that Sutent should be offered to both new patients and patients who had previously been on Interferon, the standard treatment for kidney cancer patients until Sutent was developed.

Ms Woodward said there was evidence that Sutent, used as a second-line treatment, could shrink tumours in up to 40 per cent of patients.

She called on the group to reconsider their advice.

Sutent is widely used in much of Europe and America, but only a handful of UK kidney cancer patients are getting it on the NHS.

In the North-East, three patients - Kathleen Devonport, from Chilton, County Durham, Ken Potts, from Blyth, Northumberland and Barbara Selby, from Richmond, North Yorkshire - have been fighting for access to Sutent on the NHS. Mr Potts' elderly parents have put their house on the market to pay for their son's £23,000-a-year private treatment with Sutent.

A spokeswoman for the North-East Drug Approvals Group said: "No other cancer network in the country funds Sutent as a second-line treatment.

"Clinical experts in the network looked carefully at the medical evidence in making this decision and said at every stage that this decision would be reviewed if new evidence came to light."