THE twin sister of a bowel cancer patient who sold her home to pay for a new treatment last year has attacked the decision not to make the drug available on the National Health Service.

Bridget de Grey, of New Milton, said she was "in shock" at Monday's announcement by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) that bevacizumab, sold under the brand name of Avastin, and cetuximab (Erbitux) were not cost-effective.

The Nice guidance accepts that Avastin - the drug taken by Bridget's sister Debbie Munro until her death just over a year ago - prolongs life, but says there is not enough evidence on Erbitux.

Its ruling is that neither drug "represents a good use of scarce NHS resources".

Bridget, 46, said: "I feel so desperately sorry for all the families whose hopes have been dashed.

"We were sure the drug would be approved because it had such good results.

"It was doing great things for Debbie. Her tumours shrank dramatically, but she died because she wasn't strong enough to fight off infection.

"Bowel cancer is the second biggest cancer killer. What this boils down to is that the rich can have it, but the poor can't. It's awful."

Debbie was diagnosed with bowel cancer and secondary liver cancer in March 2004. After a course of chemotherapy in Norfolk, where she was living, doctors told her there was nothing more they could do.

After carrying out research on the internet, her husband John took her to the United States for Avastin.

Doctors there hoped to shrink Debbie's tumours enough that she could have a transplant using part of Bridget's liver.

The family returned to New Milton when Avastin became available in the UK, and Debbie continued her treatment at the Derwent in Bournemouth at a cost of £2,200 every three weeks.

During the last weeks of her life, she actively backed a campaign by Beating Bowel Cancer to make targeted bowel cancer drugs more widely available.

Hilary Whittaker, chief executive of the charity, called the Nice decision "a scandal" and urged it to reconsider.

"We are now the only nation in the EU not to offer cetuximab and bevacizumab to bowel cancer patients in the disease's advanced states," she said.

"Why should patients in the UK be worse off than patients in the rest of Europe?

"Bowel cancer kills almost 50 people a day and will affect one in 18 of us during our lifetimes.

"It is terrible that, for those people who find themselves battling with the disease, the value placed on their lives seems so minimal, with effective and licensed treatments put out of reach for the majority of patients."