AS 37-year-old East Lancashire mother-of-two Michelle Hilton tragically loses her six-and-a-half-year battle against breast cancer, left disturbingly unanswered is the question of whether the expensive new drug she campaigned for to be obtainable on the NHS might have saved her.

For when, only weeks ago, it at last became available, MIchelle was just too weak to take it. Tragically, she died at her Blackburn home just a fortnight after doctors at Manchester's Christie Hospital told her there was no more they could do.

Yetwas not her anguish made worse because she and other cancer victims could have been treated long before with Herceptin, a drug proven to slow the growth of tumours?

For Michelle, it was her last hope - but, cruelly, one that was never granted. Five weeks ago this newspaper reported how Michelle, then given only two months to live and with all other forms of treatment exhausted, was pleading with health bosses to give her Herceptin - and it was there to be had.

Though it was estimated cost £20,000 a year to treat each patient with it, the drug had been passed as safe for use in Britain in 1999. In America it had been available for as long as four years.

If Michelle had lived in Merseyside or Birmingham where it was being tested on patients, she could have had it without question.

Also, the government's drugs regulatory body had been expected to approve its general release last July, but delayed the decision until November while it reviewed evidence on the effectiveness of Herceptin when used on its own.

These were all circumstances that tragically denied her hope. But, distressingly, they never should have. For, in the wake of the publicity over Michelle's fight for the drug, bosses at the Christie Hospital decided to put hope before expense and bureaucracy and agreed to provide Herceptin without waiting for the foot-dragging approval of the government's drugs body.

For Michelle it was all too late. But her legacy is that her brave fight means that Herceptin and the hope it offers is available now for other cancer sufferers. In that her family can be consoled and proud, but it is the sort of fight that should never have to occur again.