Freeze therapy gives hope to cancer sufferer Jan Egerton

Mar 1 2009 by James Marley, Sunday Sun

IN a desperate bid to win her battle for life, one North woman jetted across the globe to get ground-breaking treatment.

And now she hopes that her efforts will lead to her beating terminal cancer.

Jan Egerton has spent the last eight years fighting asbestos cancer, mesothelioma.

It seemed there was little that doctors could do for her, as her tumours were too big for radiotherapy.

But the 48-year-old refused to give up, and when she heard of a revolutionary treatment offered by medics in the US, she was straight on a plane.

Jan and husband Gary, 42, flew to Los Angeles for two sessions of the £5000-a-time treatment last year.

Now she feels better than ever.

“I was told I couldn’t have treatment in England because my tumours were bigger than two centimetres,” Jan, of Old Eldon, County Durham, explained.

“But I researched on the internet and came across this hospital in LA.

“Within three weeks of sending an email enquiry, I was on the bed about to undergo the first procedure.”

Cryoablation involves freezing and reheating a tumour repeatedly until it dies. It is done non-invasively using needles, and patients can be out of hospital the same day.

It has been used for some time to treat prostate cancer, but UCLA hospital in Los Angeles is pioneering its use for lung cancers like mesothelioma.

Used alongside major surgery to remove the lining of the lung, cryoablation could help to beat cancer in cases too advanced for radiotherapy or chemotherapy.

On her return — and under the recommendation of her American doctor — Jan underwent surgery to remove the lining of her lung.