Cancer patient welcomes newly-approved treatment

A woman who successfully underwent a newly-approved form of cancer treatment has said it allowed her to avoid the need for surgery.

The method, known as Papillon, uses low energy X-rays to treat rectal cancer patients and it has recently been recommended for use by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice).

Sharon Price, an NHS worker from Newcastle-under-Lyme, was diagnosed with rectal cancer at the age of 45 and said: "I was faced with the possibility of surgery, which would mean that I'd have to live with a stoma for the rest of my life.

"That was devastating - I was just too young to have to go through that."

A stoma is an opening in the abdomen connected to the digestive system that diverts waste into a bag worn on the outside of the body and the procedure allows patients to avoid the need for one.

Nice said it could "substantially improve" quality of life as a result.

The treatment is currently used on patients whose tumours measure 3cm (1 inch) or less and who choose not to have surgery or are too high risk.

People with larger tumours may also become eligible for the Papillon procedure if other treatments reduce their tumour to 3cm or less.

The consultant who pioneered Papillon, Prof Sun Myint from The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in Merseyside, said: "It is wonderful that patients will now be given a choice of treatment and many of them will have a much better quality of life later because of it."

His trials followed patients for five years and he found Papillon helped preserve organs 93% of the time in cases of rectal cancer where tumours measured 3cm or less.

Prof Myint, who is 77 and still working as a consultant, said he was ready to retire once the treatment became "embedded as the standard of care in the NHS and across the world".

Colorectal cancer includes cancers of the rectum, bowel and colon and is the fourth most common cancer in the UK.