Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether chemostat can be prescribed by the NHS for the treatment of patients with ocular melanoma.

Chemosaturation therapy, often referred to as chemostat, is used to treat cancer that has spread to the liver arising from ocular melanoma. It is not used to treat ocular melanoma alone.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published guidance in 2021, through its interventional procedures programme, that recommends that chemosaturation can be used for patients with secondary liver metastases resulting from a primary ocular melanoma.

NHS England considered the case for the commissioning of chemosaturation for liver metastases from ocular melanoma in 2016. At that time, NHS England concluded that there was insufficient clinical evidence to support the proposal to make the treatment available for patients with ocular melanoma in the National Health Service.

In December 2024, NHS England announced the roll out of a new treatment across England called tebentafusp, which is now available for patients with uveal melanoma, which is the most common form of ocular melanoma.