Cancer patient gives birth after ‘game-changer’ treatment
A YOUNG cancer patient who feared that chemotherapy had left her infertile gave birth after being one of the first to undergo an innovative treatment.
Sammy Gray, 26, first experienced chest pains and night sweats in 2018, shortly after the birth of her first child.
Doctors discovered a mass on her chest that was diagnosed as non-hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that develops in the lymphatic system.
Ms Gray underwent CAR-T cell therapy a year after it was approved on the NHS in 2018. The treatment trained her body to fight back against the disease.
After doctors discovered the mass, the mother from Blackpool, Lancashire, underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which initially cut the size of the tumour, but then the cancer became more aggressive.
By June 2019, she was out of treatment options, so the team at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester tried CAR-T cell therapy.
Sir Simon Stevens, the former head of the NHS, said it was a “true gamechanger”.
CAR-T (chimeric antigen receptor T-cell) is a type of immunotherapy that involves reprogramming the patient’s own immune system cells.
These cells then work to target the cancer. The treatment carries risks but has been effective in curing some patients, even those with advanced cancers where other treatments have failed.
Ms Gray gave a blood sample that was sent to the US, where her T-cells were genetically modified. These were then put back into her body via a drip, with the hope they would boost her immune system’s natural response to cancer.
After a month of undergoing the gruelling treatment, Ms Gray was allowed to go home. And it worked: three, six and 12-month scans gave her the allclear, showing no signs of cancer. Cancer treatments can leave women infertile and Ms Gray did not have periods for a year. But, she and her partner, Daley, wanted a second child, so sought approval from the NHS for IVF fertility treatment.
They had just started the process when they conceived naturally – Walter was born on Feb 23.
Ms Gray said: “I wasn’t petrified of dying but I was petrified of leaving Harper [her first child] behind.
“Walter is our little miracle. If it wasn’t for the CAR-T treatment, neither of us would be here now.”