- Are YOU a cancer survivor? Send an email to tips@dailymail.com
Doctors are on a quest to find cancer ‘survivors’ who can unlock the secret to beating The Big C.
It comes as part of a new trial that will study people who have survived five years after being diagnosed with advanced cancer.
The Times reported that eight UK hospitals will take part in the international trial to find the world’s cancer ‘super survivors’ – people who should have had months to live but are instead alive five years later – to find out how they have survived for so long. .
Dr Thankamma Ajithkumar, an oncologist at Cambridge University Hospitals, told the newspaper: “You have these patients… and all you can think is, why is this guy still around?”
“Every ten years or so, you find someone who beats the odds,” he added.
The goal of the trial is to discover what makes these patients live, rather than what makes the patients die.
Eight UK hospitals will take part in international trial to find the world’s cancer ‘survivors’ – people who should have had months to live but are instead alive five years later – to find out how they have survived for so long (archive image)
Doctors aim to understand why there are exceptional survivors of the disease and how they could have managed to overcome these mutations (archive image)
Nicolas Wolikow, co-founder of the French biotechnology company Cure51, is organizing the trial and said cancer is a “pernicious” disease because it mutates.
To find out more about this, he said, “let’s try to be as smart as it is.”
Doctors aim to understand why there are exceptional survivors of the disease and how they were able to overcome these mutations.
Wolikow said the aim is to find around 500 people in the UK and abroad who have contracted three of the deadliest cancers and should have died much sooner.
The deadliest cancers are advanced small cell lung cancer, advanced pancreatic cancer, and glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer.
Some of the people involved may have died from cancer, but there will be others who are still alive.
Dr Ajithkumar said the team was searching medical records and spreading the word among colleagues.
He questioned whether some people’s immune systems may be stronger or perhaps respond better to treatments.
But the hunch is that there must be something.
“We want to learn from anecdotes,” said Dr. Ajithkumar.
Any potential survivors of advanced small cell lung cancer, advanced pancreatic cancer or glioblastoma can contact info@cancer.cam.ac.uk to take part in the trial.