An army veteran and grandfather from Kent is the first in the world to be recruited to a study trialling a new treatment for blood cancer. <\/p>\n
Terry Barraclough received his first dose of the trial drug at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital after he suffered a relapse of his lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.<\/p>\n
The study is a phase 3 trial, testing the new drug against other available treatments in people whose cancer has returned.<\/p>\n
Terry, who is 82 and lives in Cheriton, said: “I was absolutely honoured and chuffed to bits to learn that I am the first in the world on this trial \u2013 the numero uno!”<\/p>\n
The team from East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust hopes it will be more effective and have fewer side effects than other options such as chemotherapy. <\/p>\n
Previous trials of the drug established it was safe for patients and that it could potentially kill cancer cells.<\/p>\n
Mr Barraclough, who spent 22 years in the army, was first diagnosed with follicular lymphoma six years ago. <\/p>\n
It is a type of blood cancer affecting lymphocytes, a crucial part of the immune system.<\/p>\n
Chemotherapy put it into remission, but it returned and he needed more treatment. <\/p>\n
He relapsed again earlier this year but is hopeful the trial drug is having an effect.<\/p>\n
Mr Barraclough will have to take a tablet daily for two weeks each month for a year. <\/p>\n
“I was a bit nervous at first, because a trial is a test and you don’t know if you will see the results, but even if it doesn’t do me any good I hope it will help someone else in the future,” he said.<\/p>\n
The trial drug is a tablet known as immune modulatory therapy, meaning it releases small molecules that bind to protein and kill cancer cells. <\/p>\n
It has previously been tested as a first line treatment for newly diagnosed cancer patients, but this trial investigates its effectiveness in patients whose disease has returned.<\/p>\n
Dr Moya Young, the lead investigator for the trial at the East Kent Cancer Research Centre, said: “This is a chemo-free option for patients who have already undergone some quite gruelling treatment and we are very excited to see the results.<\/p>\n
“It is rare for the NHS to be able to recruit the first global patient but the team have worked incredibly hard to make this happen and to get the necessary approvals.<\/p>\n
“Terry is the first of what we hope will be several hundred patients in countries around the world.<\/p>\n
“We are so grateful to them all for being part of this study, which we hope will lead to better treatments for more patients in the future.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An army veteran and grandfather from Kent is the first in the world to be recruited to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-218136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}