Tigga bounces back after new cancer therapy

A LUCKY cat has become the first in Britain to be cured of cancer using a pioneering £800 treatment.

Rescue pet Tigga has recovered after a tumour on her nose was treated using electrochemotherapy.

She had faced being put down to spare her a lifetime of pain but just 44 days after vets treated her she is in remission.

Paul Carter and partner Clare Woodley, both 39, told how the elderly but active cat developed a growth on her nose last year.

Sound engineer Paul, of Surbiton, south London, said: “It got bigger and our vet tried various creams but nothing was working. We had a biopsy done and it came back as cancerous, so they put us in touch with a specialist vets who offered the new treatment.

Pulse

“Tigga was in one of those neck cones and she kept scratching and splitting her nose open and it would bleed and scab up.

“It’s a rubbish quality of life. We would have been looking to have her put down.”

At North Downs Specialist Referrals in Bletchingley, Surrey, Tigga was injected with the chemotherapy drug before an electrical pulse was applied to the tumour.

This made the cancer cells briefly form pores, allowing the drug to target them.

Gerry Polton, director of oncology at the vets, said: “Electrochemotherapy involves clever anatomical targeting and protects healthy cells. The results we are seeing in cases like Tigga’s are unprecedented.”

Paul added: “After three weeks she was back to her old self and there is no sign of the tumour returning.”