British Mum fighting rare lung cancer will undergo pioneering new surgery | UK | News

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A mum diagnosed with a deadly rare-form of lung cancer that is affecting a growing number of healthy young women worldwide, is to become the first terminally ill UK female to undergo pioneering surgery to cut out her killer tumour.

Natasha Loveridge will next week join only a handful of stage 4 EGFR Positive patients with secondary progression in the world, to receive the operation which she hopes will be a game-changer for the treatment of others stricken by the deadly disease.

The mum-of-two has steadfastly refused to accept the restriction of traditional treatment plans available on the NHS, and since her shock diagnosis almost three years ago has repeatedly challenged her medical team to explore new ways to keep her alive.

And now the 51-year-old is set to undergo what is understood to be a UK-first-of-its kind operation after persuading doctors that it could prove crucial in her fight to beat her terminal diagnosis.

While the surgery is not a cure for her stage 4 disease, doctors hope it will reduce the amount of burden the primary tumour exerts on Natasha’s body and the amount of cancer the drugs she takes have to combat. And if successful it could provide a new blueprint for women battling EGFR Positive lung cancer.

Natasha said: “I’m doing it simply because I want the chance to stay alive.

“Hopefully this means that then when something does pop up again – and something will – then it’s easier to treat because your body’s dealing with less at the outset.

“Ultimately I’m doing this to stay alive for longer, for me, my family, my friends and all my loved ones and hopefully this gives more time for the incredible progress that is being made to find me a cure.”

Natasha was a fitness-loving non-smoker, working as a primary school teacher, who developed a persistent wheeze that doctors initially dismissed as an infection or maybe even TB. Lung cancer was nowhere on her or her doctor’s radar.

“I was very fit and healthy and regularly did yoga and mountain biking,” says the now retired former primary school teacher, who lives in Guiseley, West Yorkshire, with husband Matthew and daughters Emily and Gracie.

“But when my lungs started crackling when I breathed, I went back to see my GP.”

A series of tests led to the “bombshell” diagnosis of stage-four EGFR positive lung cancer, a rare but growing form of the disease, that primarily affects young, non-smoking women.

Unlike more common types of lung cancer, it is driven by a genetic mutation and medics are exploring why an ever-increasing number of healthy women are being struck down by the deadly disease.

Potential causes being investigated include exposure to traffic pollution – many like Natasha were keen runners – cleaning and beauty products and also gases emitted from cooking at high temperatures using oils.

Since her December 2022 diagnosis Natasha has been kept alive by what she calls her “wonder drug” Osimertinib, that helped shrink her tumour.

But with the primary tumour in retreat she received the devastating blow that the cancer had spread and she had metastasis in the brain.

She said: “When I was first diagnosed three years ago, surgery wasn’t even on the table. I was told I was incurable and inoperable — surgery simply wasn’t an option.

“But then, about a year ago, I found out through this huge worldwide cancer community, that I’ve become connected to, that a small number of people in America in my position were starting to have surgery. I got hold of the research papers and connect with some of the patients and took the findings to my amazing medical team. They’ve looked at the research, read the papers, sort second opinions from across the globe and luckily decided to go ahead with surgery.

“The actual surgery itself isn’t unusual, I’m going to be having either a lobectomy – removing one of the lung’s three lobes, or pneumonectomy – removing the entire lung.

“But what is unusual is that when you are stage four, first of all, they generally don’t like to perform surgery. So you’re stage four, you’re on the targeted therapy that I’m on, and also, if you’ve had progression in your cancer, which I’ve had, especially with the brain, then they really don’t tend to like to perform surgery.

But I put a case forward and they’ve listened to me and my case has now been shared by medical teams across the world. My team are amazing. They are really forward thinking, and without their support this wouldn’t be happening. A lot of oncologists, and a lot of lung cancer teams, would have just said ‘no, there’s absolutely no way this is happening your stage four’.

Natasha will undergo full open surgery at Leeds St James’ Hospital on Tuesday under consultant thoracic surgeon Dr Alessandro Brunelli.

She added: “I have to keep telling people, including my two girls, that this surgery isn’t a cure. I’ll still have stage four cancer. I’ll still have cancer in my brain. But we are hoping that it will give me more time — more days to wake up and feel the sun, more moments with the people I love, more life to live.

“There are no guarantees, no promises that this will change the outcome. There is no data to show that overall survival is improved. But I am hoping to become the data – it’s a chance I’m willing to take.

“Because at the end of the day… I’m choosing hope. I’m choosing life.”

Follow Natasha on Instagram and for more information about lung cancer visit https://roycastle.org/ and https://www.egfrpositive.org.uk/treatment-options