Controversial drug can help in cancer battle.

WOMEN who have almost lost the battle with breast cancer can be given an extra chance by the controversial drug Herceptin, a study has shown.

A trial found that adding Herceptin to conventional chemotherapy delayed progression of the cancer by nearly three months compared with chemotherapy alone - an improvement of 46 per cent.

Survival was extended from 20.4 months to 25.5 months on average. However, this result was not statistically significant.

Herceptin - the antibody drug trastuzumab - is only effective in women with the HER-2 gene, who account for around 20 per cent of breast cancer patients.

In 2006, the NHS watchdog the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) backed the use of Herceptin in early stage patients after coming under enormous pressure to make the drug more accessible.

But many doctors and health experts have questioned whether the NHS can afford the drug, which costs u20,000 per patient per year.

A team of researchers from Norwich said treatment for other cancer patients would have to be dropped to "balance the books".