The planned date for review of this piece of guidance is April 2005.  This is the date at which the Institute decides whether sufficient new evidence has emerged for the Appraisal Committee to be asked to undertake a full appraisal review. 

As part of the planning for the Institute’s guideline on breast cancer, we have decided to consider this guidance together with our guidance on vinorelbine for the treatment of advanced breast cancer (no.54) and our guidance on capecitabine for the treatment of locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer (no.62). 

Having considered these three pieces of guidances and the possible scope for a review, we believe that these topics would be better dealt with within the context of a clinical guideline. Consequently we propose that the review of these pieces of guidance be carried out as part of the NICE guideline on breast cancer, which is due to start development later this year.  The current pieces of guidance on trastuzumab, vinorelbine and capecitabine would stand until the time that the new guideline is issued to the NHS.

In order to be completely confident that this is appropriate, we are asking all original consultees, to inform us of any evidence which would suggest that a technology appraisal review, rather than updating within a guideline would be more appropriate.