Immunotherapy has saved my life

Derek said:

I was first diagnosed with cancer of the larynx back in 2011 but quickly went into remission after having standard treatments. I went back to enjoying my retirement, until I started having symptoms again, like coughing up blood, in January 2014.

I was told I had squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck, which was inoperable and probably incurable. The standard treatments of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which I had at my local hospital, weren’t really doing much for me this time around. My tumours were still getting larger and I was told there wasn’t much more they could do.

My doctor contacted The Royal Marsden and I was really lucky to get a place on the pembrolizumab trial. I started treatment in May 2015.

I travelled down from Leicester every three weeks for two years. My tumour was shrinking all the time and I felt a bit better every time I went – it made a huge difference to my life and I was able to return to normality.

Now I have CT scans every nine weeks, which are still showing stable disease and slight tumour shrinkage each time. It’s remarkable how I’ve responded to the drug and I don’t think I’d be here without it.