Cumbrian woman plays key role as new cancer treatment drug approved on NHS

A Cumbrian woman has played a key role in getting the NHS in England to approve a new cancer treatment drug.

Sue Woodburn, from Kirkby Lonsdale, says her life has been transformed by the drug Dostarlimab. The drug helps stimulate her own immune system to fight her cancer.

She was one of the first people to use the treatment last year.

Speaking to ITV Border, Sue said: "About this time last year I was initially offered quite major surgery which was going to involve removing the bladder and all sorts of other bits which sounded absolutely horrendous.

"By the time the surgery was scheduled the tutor had got inoperable. At that point there was talk of palliative care, I didn’t expect to see Christmas.

"I just thought my days were numbered. I then went back to my oncologist who saw me through treatment a year last summer and she mentioned a new drug. She said there was an option for her to try and apply for it for me."

The drug helps her own immune system recognise her cancer and attack it, so she took the treatment alongside conventional chemotherapy.

Sue said: "People were suddenly talking in years and not months. It really was that hope that it is not a cure but they are hoping it is going to hold things at bay and to give me a better quality of life for longer.

“I am more or else back to normal and went ski-ing in January. I am back playing tennis and we are going back to the Alps with the family for Easter ski-ing.

“There was an anxious wait while the panel decided whether they were going to licence this drug or not. It is all funding led and it is expensive and that is what they have to weigh up."

Professor Peter Clark, NHS England’s Cancer Drugs Fund Lead, said: “The roll out of this drug as a first-line treatment on the NHS is great news for patients living with this type of womb cancer – this new immunotherapy could offer hundreds of women the hope of precious extra time to live well before their cancer progresses.

“The NHS has fast-tracked this innovative treatment through the Cancer Drugs Fund and we’re delighted that dostarlimab today becomes the latest in a long list of cutting-edge treatments available on the NHS to help people with cancer live well with a better quality of life.”

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