A cancer patient is anxiously waiting to hear from NHS bosses whether she can receive a drug that could extend her life.

Kathleen Devonport, 63, of Chilton, near Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, has been told that the recently-licensed drug Sutent is the last chance to keep her kidney cancer at bay.

Disappointed that her consultant was unable to prescribe the £30,000-a-year drug on the NHS, she applied to County Durham Primary Care Trust's exceptional cases committee to ask it to give her doctor clearance.

The committee considered her request yesterday.

Meanwhile, her appointment with a consultant at the Washington BUPA Hospital about getting Sutent privately has been confirmed, but Mrs Devonport and her husband, Ray, fear they will struggle to pay the £3,000 a month needed to cover the cost of private prescription of Sutent.

Mr Devonport is angry that Sutent is being widely prescribed to patients with advanced kidney cancer in the US and Western Europe, but is not available to UK NHS patients.

But he is encouraged by news that in the past few weeks, advanced kidney cancer patients in South Yorkshire and East Lancashire have persuaded their local primary care trusts to pay for Sutent, and a similar drug called Nexavar, on the NHS.

Janine Handrick, 35, from Doncaster, and Keith Ditchfield, 53, who lives near Clitheroe, in Lancashire, got their local primary care trusts to pay for treatment.

Two other North-East patients, John Hodgson, 75, from Ferryhill, County Durham, and Ken Potts, 53, from Blyth, Northumberland, are also trying to get Sutent on the NHS.