Pioneering cancer drug to be trialled in the UK after British girl's remarkable recovery

 
Little fighter: Lily MacGlashan
Benedict Moore-Bridger8 September 2014

A pioneering cancer drug is to be trialled in the UK following the remarkable recovery of a five-year-old girl whose family took her to America for treatment unavailable on the NHS.

The drug, developed by a New York clinic, will be given to UK children suffering from neuroblastoma, a rare cancer of the nervous system.

The move is being paid for by the same charity that funded the treatment of five-year-old Lilly MacGlashan, who was taken to a New York clinic able to administer an expensive experimental drug the NHS would not provide.

Struggle: Dawn and John MacGlashan

Lilly’s parents, John, 50, and Dawn, 45, had to raise more than £1 million for the treatment after NHS doctors told them she could not be saved.

At the Memorial Sloan-Kettering cancer centre in New York medics injected Lilly’s brain with a drug called 8H9 which “teaches” cancer cells to kill themselves. She has been in remission for the past two years and doctors said she has a 70 per cent chance of remaining free of the cancer, which affects 100 children a year in the UK. Now the latest development of the treatment, a vaccine, is set to be trialled here. It is being paid for by the Neuroblastoma Children’s Cancer Alliance which with the help of Lily’s parents has raised the necessary £300,000.

Dr Stephen Lowis, from the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children carrying out the trial, told the BBC’s Inside Out: “Bringing this trial over to the UK I think is transformational and entirely down to them. Without their funding we would not be doing this study.” Results in America have been remarkable, with 13 of 15 children studied left in remission after the treatment.

Dr Lowis said he understood why the NHS left the charity to buy the vaccine, adding: “How could you spend this amount of money on something that is unproven? We are going to treat 12 patients with this money. That expense is unsupportable.”

Togetherness: Lilly, left, with her sister Molly. The twins started school last week

But despite the successful treatment, Lilly’s parents said they had further trouble with the NHS when it refused to provide the American doctors with regular MRI scans until their MP, Andrew Selous, demanded it.

The family, from Dunstable in Bedfordshire, recently returned from their first summer holiday abroad without Lilly requiring treatment. Last Wednesday she started her first day of school alongside her twin sister Molly.

Read More

Mrs MacGlashan said: “She’s doing so well. If we had listened to [the NHS] we wouldn’t be sitting here now. I just love watching her love life.”

The NHS declined to comment.

Inside Out London is being broadcast tonight on BBC1 at 8pm.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in