Staffordshire cancer patient welcomes newly-approved treatment

A woman who successfully underwent a newly approved cancer treatment said it allowed her to avoid surgery.

The technique, known as Papillon, uses low-energy X-rays to treat patients with colorectal cancer and 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 colon cancer at the age of 45 and said: “I was faced with the possibility of surgery, which would mean I would have to live with a stoma for the rest of my life.

“It was devastating – I was too young to go through it.”

An ostomy is an opening in the abdomen connected to the digestive system that directs waste into a bag worn outside the body, a procedure that allows patients to avoid the need for one.

Nice said the result could be a “substantial improvement” in quality of life.

This treatment is currently used for patients whose tumors are 3 cm (1 inch) or smaller and who choose not to have surgery or are too high of a risk.

People with larger tumors may also be eligible for the Papillon procedure if other treatments reduce the size of the tumor to 3 cm or less.

The consultant who pioneered the use of Papillon, Professor San Myint, from Clatterbridge Cancer Center in Merseyside, said: “It's great that patients will now be given a choice of treatment and many of them will have a much better quality of life afterwards as a result.”

His research followed patients over a five-year period and he found that the Papillon helped save organs in 93% of colorectal cancer cases where the tumors were 3cm or smaller.

Prof Myint, who is 77 and still works as a consultant, said he is ready to retire once the treatment becomes “the standard of care in the NHS and around the world”.

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