HUNDREDS of patients in the South West should now be able to benefit from a transformative treatment for cystic fibrosis.
NHS patients will be among the first in Europe to be prescribed Kaftrio, which significantly improves lung function, helping people with cystic fibrosis to breathe more easily and enhancing their overall quality of life.
The treatment – known as the ‘triple combination therapy’ – has been given the green light by European regulators, meaning a deal struck by NHS England to get the drug onto the frontline of patient care as soon as it was licensed can go ahead.
Most patients with CF – more than 7,000 people in England, around 600 across the South West – can now benefit from this therapy which tackles the underlying causes of the condition.
Zara Teare, a patient at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, welcomed the news about the new drug and said:
“Being given the chance to have Trikafta [the marketing name used for Kaftrio in the USA] is like being given a second chance in life. A potential 10% increase seems like the impossible, I’ve forgotten what it feels like to have a lung function like that… or to even take in a big deep breath.
“It’s really true when people say this drug can be life changing, there’s no words to describe that feeling of being given that chance.”
Cystic fibrosis accounts for 9,500 hospital admissions and over 100,000 hospital bed days a year, as each patient stays in hospital for approximately 10 days.
The number of people who die of CF is thankfully reducing, but it still kills around 100 people in this country each year.