Australian Government - Department of Health and Ageing

Medical Services Advisory Committee (MSAC)

Application 1016

Application No.

1016

Application NameSamarium153-lexidronam for pain due to skeletal metastases
Advisory PanelDr Richard King
(Chair and MSAC member)
Mr Ian Burnard
(Australian Cancer Society nominee)
Dr Graeme Dickie
(Australian and New Zealand Association of Physicians in Nuclear Medicine nominee)
Assoc Professor Gillian Duchesne
(Royal Australasian College of Radiologists nominee)
Dr Peter Ellis
(Royal Australasian College of Physicians nominee)
Dr John Primrose
(Medical Advisor to the MSAC)
Date Received by MSAC Secretariat1 August 1998
Stage 1 - EligibilityEligible
Stage 2 - AssessmentCompleted
Stage 3 - Formulation of Advice to the MinisterThis assessment was considered by the MSAC at the 19 May 1999 meeting.

On the basis of evidence supporting its safety, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, the supporting commmittee for this application recommends that 153SM-lexidronam be subsidised for the relief of bone pain in patients with skeletal metastases (as indicated by a positive bone scan) from the following malignancies:
  1. carcinoma of the prostate, where hormonal therapy has failed; or
  2. carcinoma of the breast, where hormonal therapy and chemotherpay have failed; and either;
  1. the disease is poorly controlled by conventional radiotherapy; or
  2. conventional radiotherapy is inappropriate, due to the wide distribution of sites of bone pain.
Stage 4 - DecisionEndorsed by the Minister for Health and Ageing 9 August 1999
Stage 5 - Implementation

Page currency, Latest update: 03 April, 2009