Tassia Haines – METUPUK (Wales) member, patient advocate & fantastic artist. Back in February, I had to go into hospital after side effects from being on Trodelvy. I wanted
Being invisible on a cancer ward…
Breathing Techniques with Louisa from Breathe Balance Be
“As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than there is wrong…..”
Mental Health and Metastatic Breast Cancer
The human brain is hardwired to seek out danger. It’s part of being human, an inbuilt survival mechanism designed to protect us. Normal functioning of the mind enables us to
Drug access – drug hope vs financial approval…
I contacted METUPUK when I was diagnosed as a primary patient in 2018. Even though my mum died of secondary breast cancer in 2015 I had no real understanding of the metastatic disease and the challenges patients face getting access to the treatment they need.
Dr Rachel Eyre interviews Dr Hannah Harrison about breast cancer research
Scientific research is vital for the development of new and improved treatments for secondary breast cancer. But what’s it like to be a scientist working in this area? Dr Hannah Harrison received her PhD in breast cancer research from the University of Manchester in 2009 and has since worked as a breast cancer research scientist in the Manchester Cancer Research Centre. Here, Hannah tells us about her work.
How smarter therapies can help metastatic breast cancer patients – and why we need more!
At METUPUK, we campaign for new and better therapies for patients with secondary breast cancer. One of our recent campaigns, #TrodelvyNow helped to make a new type of drug, Trodelvy (sacituzumab govitecan) available for SBC patients in the UK. Scientist and METUPUK volunteer, Helen, explains how Trodelvy works and why it’s important that more drugs like this get to patients urgently.
My Journey to Alpelisib
Oh how I wished it was a walking journey! That I could deal with! But in the last 6 months my oncologist’s quest to get me to have this PIKC3A targeted drug, was admirable, and left us on a roller coaster of emotions.
On the trail of a Clinical Trial…
METUPUK historically maintained their own in-house clinical trial database for metastatic trials in the UK as there was no one source that contained them all. It used the key sites used across the UK; Cancer Research UK, Be Part of Research, ISRCTN and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Leaping forward to 2022, surely by now one of them must be THE accurate, easily searchable source of breast cancer trials? If not, how do our oncologists quickly and accurately find the best trials for their metastatic patients?
And where do patients start when looking for a metastatic trial themselves?