NHS clinicians in England will be among the first to offer a cutting-edge personalised cancer treatment to some people with lymphoma, after the CAR T cell therapy was approved for NHS use.

Tecartus – a immune-boosting treatment that engineers a patient’s own immune cells to kill their cancer – has been recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for people with a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

NICE estimates that around 100 people a year with mantle cell lymphoma could be treated with this therapy. Kruti Shrotri, head of policy development at Cancer Research UK, said the news will be welcomed by people with mantle cell lymphoma.