Rushden Boy "deserves new treatment"

An MP is calling for a young cancer patient to be given a potentially life saving treatment.

Zac Knighton-Smith suffers from neuroblastoma, a very rare form of childhood cancer.  Last year his cousin Chelsea died of the disease at the age of three, with doctors saying it was almost unheard of for there to be two cases in the same family group.

The five year old was too ill to take part in medical trials of a new treatment and when he was well enough, the deadline had passed.

Peter Bone, MP for Wellingborough and Rushden, will meet experts at Great Ormond Street Hospital on Wednesday along with Health minister Ann Keen MP to discuss the case and try and get Zac included on the new treatment, Monoclonal antibody therapy.
 
Peter Bone said: ‘The current treatment being offered to children with Neuroblastoma gives a survival rate of between 20 – 30%. However, the new treatment would give children with this disease a 70% chance of survival.
 
‘Whilst every child now diagnosed with this life-threatening disease will automatically be put onto this treatment, along with those who have been diagnosed within a certain time frame, Zachary misses out on both these counts by a matter of weeks and is one of only half a dozen sufferers in the UK to do so.
 
‘It would be a tragedy if Zachary were to miss out on a treatment that could potentially save his life for purely bureaucratic reasons, and I will be pressing Ann Keen MP, who is Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, to find a method of funding Zachary’s care.’