Written question asked by Angela Watkinson (Conservative) on Tuesday, 17 October 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 19 October 2006. It was answered by Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Labour) on Monday, 30 October 2006 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Breast Cancer

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment she has made of the geographical consistency of testing of women newly-diagnosed with breast cancer for suitability for treatment with herceptin.

Answer: In October 2005, Professor Mike Richards, the national cancer director, wrote to all cancer networks to identify the current level of HER2 testing and to inform them that they would need to put arrangements for HER2 testing in place.This exercise confirmed that access to HER2 testing facilities was patchy and few networks were testing all women with early breast cancer to determine their HER2 status.In March 2006, the national cancer director sought a progress report from cancer networks. This showed that there had been a significant improvement in the number of cancer networks providing HER2 testing for all women diagnosed with early breast cancer.28 out of 34 cancer networks reported that they were HER2 testing all women diagnosed with early stage breast cancer. The remaining six reported that they would be testing all these women by the end of October 2006.

Secondary information