After speaking openly about her brain cancer, the former minister for public health and culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, is now campaigning for cancer patients to have the choice to trial new treatments and stop the ones that aren’t working for them when they want.
Brain cancer
Jowell has a rare form of glioblastoma and has been informed that there are no more treatments available to her on the NHS. This has led her to the stance that innovative cancer treatments that are available elsewhere in the world should be available in the UK on the NHS.
Brain cancer, despite being a vast killer of both children and adults under 40 years of age, currently receives only one to two percent of research funding. One project, in the UK — Datrix, is aiming to not only change this by developing a novel treatment for glioblastoma but also by improving the profile of the disease to attract further investment.
“Brain tumour patients have been ignored for too long. It is their turn,” stated Dr Paul Mulholland, consultant at UCL where the project will be lead.
The project has developed an extremely novel and promising treatment for glioblastoma — which sees proteins coated with a particle injected directly into the tumour. After the coated proteins are injected the patient’s head is then exposed to magnetic resonance, which heats up the particles and exposes the once hidden tumour cells to the body’s own immune system. There is a film available on YouTube that describes the treatment, which can be accessed here