A CANCER sufferer has urged health chiefs to reconsider investing in a drug that can extend men’s lives.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has decided not to recommend a life-extending treatment for patients in the final stages of prostate cancer.

Abiraterone can increase the amount of time a man with an advanced form of the disease has left to live by an average of around four months.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK. It accounts for nearly a quarter of all new male cancer diagnoses and 10,000 deaths annually.

Syptoms include trouble passing urine and pain in the back, hips or pelvis.

The Prostate Cancer Charity described the draft decision as a “bitter blow to thousands of men and their families”.

And Martin Wells, chairman of the East Lancashire Prostate Cancer Support Group, backed its call for NICE to change its decision.

Martin, 58, of Lorton Close, Burnley, said: “Four months doesn’t sound very long, but if I was at that advanced stage, I would want to live another four months.”

The growth of prostate cancer cells is fuelled by the testosterone hormone. Martin underwent a two-and-a half-year course of hormone therapy to try and limit its production. This was followed by radiotherapy, which has successfully controlled his disease so far.

He said: “If my prostate cancer cells get out of control I would have another course of hormone therapy. If that failed then perhaps in five, eight or maybe 10 years the cancer could start to spread to my bones and brain.

“Abiraterone can help with the symptoms and controlling that spread of cancer.

“A 54-year-old man came along to our April meeting last year. He was dead two months later because he wasn’t diagnosed in time and the cancer spread. This could have given him more time.”

Owen Sharp, chief executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity, said it would be “devastating” if the drug remained out of reach when men needed it the most.

He said: “The drug is one of the biggest breakthroughs in the treatment of the disease for many years.

“In a very human currency, this may give a man the chance to walk his daughter down the aisle or see the birth of a grandchild.”