SCIENTIST IN CANCER PLEA AFTER THIRD DIAGNOSIS
ACANCER scientist diagnosed with the disease for the third time has issued a plea for people to support research after the devastating blow to funding caused by coronavirus.
As told previously in the Glasgow Times, Dr Zuzana Brabcova owes her life to research after twice surviving cervical cancer.
But the 34-year-old was given the awful news two weeks ago that her cancer has begun to spread in her lymph nodes, and to her spine and liver.
And the scientist, who is funded by Cancer Research UK, is worried about the threat the funding gap poses to future breakthroughs.
Zuzana has just started six rounds of chemotherapy drugs called carboplatin and capecitabine.
Cancer Research UK scientists discovered carboplatin, one of the most successful cancer drugs ever developed.
And the charity played a role in clinical trials of capecitabine.
Zuzana, from Anniesland, said: “As a cancer scientist, and someone who has cancer, I know first-hand just how vital new discoveries are to help people survive the disease.
“This is the third time I’ve had to have treatment for cancer, and I am trying a different drug this time which will hopefully reduce the size of my tumours and help get my cancer back under control.
“But, because of Covid-19, research into cancer is facing a crisis where years and even decades worth of work could be lost in a matter of months.
“It makes me worried for people like me in the future that progress on developing new cancer treatments is being slowed down by the impact of the virus.”
With her own research currently on pause due to the pandemic, Zuzana, who works at the Cancer Research UK Glasgow Centre at Glasgow University, is backing an urgent new appeal from Cancer Research UK for donations to help get life-saving work back on track.
Following the cancellation of fundraising events like Race for Life, the charity is expecting a staggering £160million drop in income in the year ahead.
As a result, Cancer Research UK has had to make the difficult decision to cut £44m in research funding, but this is likely to be just the beginning.
Zuzana, originally from the Czech Republic, was diagnosed with cervical cancer in October 2016 after noticing some abnormal bleeding.
She said: “It was like a big lorry hit me when they told me I had cancer. I thought they must be wrong, they must be talking about a different patient.
“I just sat staring at them. I didn’t feel like they were talking about me.”
She was treated with intensive radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which made her very unwell but, by February 2017, she was given the allclear.
Then a physicist at Northumbria University, Newcastle, Zuzana felt driven by her experience to look for a new job in cancer research.
She moved to Glasgow in May 2017 to begin her new role as a data scientist at the Cancer Research UK Glasgow Centre.
But only six months later, in November 2017, doctors at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre gave her the news at a check-up that her cancer had returned and it had spread to her lymph nodes.
Faced with six more rounds of aggressive chemotherapy, it was a further blow when Zuzana was told the treatment this time would cause her to lose her waist-length hair.
Determined to “strike back” against cancer, Zuzana took the brave decision to shave her head before her treatment started.
She donated more than 60cm of her hair to the Little Princess Trust, as well as raising more than £2100 for Cancer Research UK and the Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre in Glasgow.
Scans after finishing her second round of treatment showed Zuzana’s cancer was not completely gone, but her tumours were smaller and her cancer was stable.
She said: “The doctors told me that the cancer might stay incurable, but it would be manageable. I refused to act like a sick person.
“My fiancé, Mirek, and I went to Spain and I was excited to be able to attend scientific conferences in Cambridge, and Miami.”
Just six weeks after her last round of chemotherapy, Zuzana ran the 2018 Race For Life Glasgow 5K in under 30 minutes to raise funds for Cancer Research UK.
Doctors have been monitoring Zuzana with CT scans every three months, and a scan in April this year showed her cancer was still stable. But, not long afterwards, she started to feel unwell with pain in her back and hips and swelling in her leg.
On July 9, she was admitted to the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, where a CT scan showed the cancer in one of her lymph nodes had started to spread and new tumours on her spine and in her liver.
Zuzana said: “I was really upset, it was so unexpected after my scan