This time next year, cancer survivors like Orange resident Steve Jones won’t have to put their life on hold to access life-saving cancer trial treatment.
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Mr Jones is living proof that experimental cancer drug trials, set to commence in Orange this year, will save lives and provide better health outcomes.
Moving to Orange from Parkes in 2013 to gain better access to treatment for cancer, which had spread throughout his body, he said he owed his life to these types of clinical trials.
“Originally I was treated for a brain tumour and had surgery. Following that, when they did a biopsy they found I had lung cancer,” he said.
“Then they did a scan of my body they found cancer in my adrenal glands and my stomach.”
The cancer in his lungs was a non-small cell lung cancer, called Anaplastic Lymphoma kinase. Out of those diagnosed with the disease, only 3 per cent are non-smokers, like Mr Jones, and are usually younger women or people of Asian descent, he said.
After chemotherapy and available drugs weren’t providing a long-term solution; Orange-based oncologist Dr Robert Zielinski suggested taking part in a Sydney-based trail.
With just over a year of treatment, Mr Jones has gone from travelling to Sydney for two days of treatment each fortnight to being in remission.
“What astounds me is they can’t find the tumours on my scans anymore,” he said.
“They’re all gone. It’s magical to think that I had cancer and without having to be opened up or go under the knife that it’s gone.
As announced last month, Cancer Care Western NSW is raising $300,000 for clinical trials to take place.
Cancer Care Western NSW Fundraising chair Jan Savage said logistical processes were being finalised for trials to be underway before the end of the year.
“We’re actually in the process of setting up the staffing situation and also the governance,” she said.
About $20,000 worth of equipment needs to be set up for two staff members to run the two-year drug trial campaign at Central West Cancer Services, within the Orange Health Service.
