The Christie charity Impact Report 2021-22

Kevin’s story Kevin Jones, who lived and worked in Blackburn as a police officer before retiring to Devon in 2021, was diagnosed with a rare neuroendocrine tumour in 2018. These can develop when changes happen in the neuroendocrine cells and tumours start to grow out of control.

Kevin was initially treated with standard chemotherapy for nine months and his tumour shrank. But six months later when it started to grow again, he was devastated by the news that there was no agreed further treatment for this very rare cancer. Kevin was then given the option to go on a clinical trial designed specifically for people like

him, offering him new hope of improved treatment and more time with his family. The goal was to see if one combination of chemotherapy drugs was better than a different drug and effective for longer, or if it increased the time until patients needed to change to a different treatment. Despite the distance between his home in Tiverton in Devon and The Christie, Kevin was happy to continue to travel to Manchester for his treatment. The trial involved regular appointments for chemotherapy treatments, and scans every eight weeks – which have revealed Kevin’s tumour, which was resting on a vein in his groin, has shrunk by an amazing 88% from the size of a walnut to the size of a raisin.

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