WONDER DRUG HOPE

Jan 26 2007 Exclusive: Graham Fraser

A PERTH pensioner is to become the first person in the world to undergo a revolutionary new treatment for pancreatic cancer.

Retired secretary Rosaline McKenzie (65) will receive a new method of treatment, Photodynamic Therapy (PDT), which experts believe could eventually help thousands of sufferers.

She said: “I am very privileged to be considered for the treatment. It is quite an honour to be the first on a trial like this. It will give such real hope to so many people. I am really excited.”

Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) is already used for mouth, head and neck, skin, oesophageal, prostate and early lung cancers. But Rosaline will be the first to be treated for pancreatic cancer.

The patient receives a light-sensitive drug that, when activated in the target cancer tissue with light, kills the cancer by depriving the cells of oxygen.

With PDT, patients will usually require just a single treatment with none of the side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Rosaline said: “For me, PDT offers a real possibility of beating the cancer.

“I refuse to accept that this disease will shorten my life.

“This is a trial, and as one of its first patients, I know the team will be conservative with the levels of drug and light they use first time, but I am promised that once they get the first results, I can be re-treated again, if required.”

Bile duct cancer and brain tumours are also being treated experimentally with PDT.

Compared with other treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy, PDT patients do not experience skin burns or hair loss.

There is no damage to the white blood cells or the body’s natural immune system.

PDT is also much cheaper than more established treatments.

While the total cost of radiotherapy and chemotherapy can accumulate to over £100,000 per patient, PDT will cost only £20,000, and it is hoped that the PDT treatment will only have to be administered once.

Pancreatic cancer develops from the cells within the pancreas, a gland located high up in the abdomen just behind the stomach.

If it is not treated, cancer cells can spread into nearby organs or lymph nodes, or, eventually, break away and spread to other parts of the body. It is one of the most difficult cancers to treat with surgery because it often grows around veins and a main artery.

Rosaline, who previously worked with Johnston the Joiners in Craigie, was diagnosed with the disease in June 2005.

When consultants at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, where she was being treated, told her that chemotherapy was not working, Rosaline and her family looked for other solutions.

Daughter Fiona (33), a landscape architect with the CPM firm, researched other pancreatic cancer treatments on the internet and she came across the PDT method.

Fiona and Rosaline had already read stories in the press about how PDT had cured a mouth cancer patient without the need for surgery.

Fiona contacted the Killing Cancer charity, run by tireless campaigner David Longman.

The charity has cleared all the red tape for Rosaline to be treated at the University College Hospital in London sometime over the next few weeks.

Rosaline, who has one grandchild, Annabelle, born on December 2, is delighted that she will have this new treatment.

She told the PA: “The charity has been wonderful in helping me. The charity’s founder and director, David Longman, is a remarkable man who just wants to help people who are suffering.”

Mr Longman said: “We have been working to raise the funds to start treating patients for the past 12 months.

“But fundraising has been a huge problem.

“The NHS will pay for the treatment, but we incur all of the extra costs, such as research and development.

“Even now, we are more than £100,000 short of what we need, but three weeks ago we were able to make a donation to the hospital that will allow treatments to start in January.”

Rosaline’s team of medics at the University College, London, are optimistic that their revolutionary treatment could result in “significant tumour destruction”, while the target is to kill off the cancer completely.

Dr Steve Pereira, lead clinician, said: “All of the pre-testing and laboratory trials have shown that we are on target to deliver for an exciting series of results for Rosaline and the other patients who contact us.

“The minimum aim is to manage and control what is, in effect, the most deadly and difficult cancer to treat.”

Dr Pereira has already produced significant results with his work in bile duct cancer with a different PDT drug.

Rosaline added: “I have a very strong faith and I believe that I will be in the very best hands.

“Perhaps PDT will help provide the answer that I have been searching for.”

Rosaline and her husband Stewart (67), a retired learning support teacher from Perth Academy, are now hoping Perthshire people will raise funds to help pay for others.

She told the PA: “I know that the only way for others to be treated and to be as lucky as me is to find other ways of fundraising.”

Further details about the charity, and how you can help patients like Rosaline, can be found at www.killingcancer.co.uk. Donations can be made via the website.

Email David Longman at patient.killingcancer@virgin. net, or write to Killing Cancer, 1 Addington Road, Woodford, Northamption NN14 4ES.