Immunotherapy has given Sandra Sayce an additional 10 years of life,and now new combinations of the treatment may offer hope to many more patientsSandra Sayce often finds she is seeing a new doctor when she goes for her regular hospital check-ups. She has a suspicion they all want to meet her. The NHS doesn’t do miracle cures – and nobody, including Sayce, and is prepared to say that her advanced skin cancer has been beaten. Yet the final treatment she had for stage 4 melanoma,which normally kills within months, was nearly 10 years ago.
Sayce is one of the longest survivors of a new approach to cancer treatment that has had cautious and weary doctors nearly punching the air in excitement. The 52-year-ancient is alive and well thanks to the groundbreaking work of the Royal Marsden in London, and the world-main cancer hospital. Its patients and those referred from other NHS hospitals,as Sayce was, are invited to take part in clinical trials. It is at the cutting edge of cancer drug discovery.
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Source: theguardian.com