Treatment the family begged for...
WHEN doctors told him his son’s condition was terminal, Brett King begged them to use a pioneering treatment called proton beam therapy.
The treatment, which costs £100,000 a patient, is not widely available on the NHS, but is commonly used throughout Europe.
The difference between proton beam therapy and conventional forms of radiotherapy is that it is thought to cause less damage to the healthy tissue around the tumour. For that reason it is particularly suited to children, who are more susceptible to harm from radiation because they are still growing.
Conventional radiotherapy uses X-rays to kill cancer cells. But X-rays pass through the
tumour and out the other side, damaging tissue. Protons, which are positively charged particles in the centre of any atom, stop when they reach the tumour.
The treatment is popular in Europe because it has a lower risk of side effects, though some have expressed concerns because little is known about the longterm impact of the procedure.
The only proton beam facility in the UK is at the Clatterbridge Centre for Cancer in the Wirral, which delivers ‘low energy’ therapy for rare cancers around the eye.
NHS England said ‘high energy’ facilities were being built and the treatment will be offered to 1,500 patients by 2018.
A small number of patients can get NHS-funded proton beam ther- apy abroad after being assessed for their suitability. Between 2008 and 2013, 412 NHS patients were approved for the treatment abroad, including 293 children.
Several of the patients – including children with brain tumours – have made a full recovery, but there is no reliable data to show whether the treatment has worked better than conventional therapies used by the NHS.
In his video blog, Mr King said: ‘We pleaded with [the doctors] for proton beam treatment. They said with his cancer... it would have no benefit whatsoever.’
A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘Decisions on treatment for individual patients are made by doctors who are best placed to know what their patient needs.’