Lancaster store boss is one of first cancer patients to benefit from £1.3m revolutionary new treatment

Retail supervisor at the Lush store, Jayne Antins is currently undergoing radiotherapy treatment for breast cancer and is benefiting from Rosemere Cancer Centre’s new £1.3 million SGRT – Surface Guided Radiotherapy..

The 41-year-old is now part way through a 10 session course of radiotherapy treatment with the guiding light mapping system having already undergone lumpectomy surgery last year following diagnosis in August.

Jayne, who lives in the city with her fiancé Robert and their one-year-old daughter Clemency, said: “I discovered a lump while breast feeding Clemency. She was just eight months-old at the time. I thought initially it was a milk clog but when it didn’t go, I went to my GP to have it checked.

“I feel lucky it was caught at the earliest stage and that I am now almost at the end of my treatment. I also feel lucky to have benefitted from the new SGRT system.”

Dan Hill, chief officer of charity Rosemere Cancer Foundation, which is funding the equipment, said: “SGRT has many benefits. It’s a non invasive guide system that uses a near infra red light to better position patients so that their radiotherapy treatment is delivered with improved accuracy and speed, reducing the risk of treatment side-effects and overall exposure to radiation from repeat positioning scans.

“Patients will no longer need to have permanent tattoos as treatment guide marks and it means also that claustrophobic enclosed face masks that have to be worn by some head and neck cancer patients can be swapped for more comfortable open masks.”

Dan continued: “We are delighted to be bringing SGRT to local cancer patients. The equipment needed to make it possible is installed in all six of the cancer centre’s radiotherapy treatment rooms and its CT scanner room. The plan is for a small number of our breast cancer patients like Jayne to undergo their radiotherapy with SGRT and then to roll it out to all other radiotherapy patients over the coming months.

“Rosemere Cancer Centre has become the country’s largest, single SGRT site and one of SGRT’s earliest UK adopters. We would like to thank everyone who has helped us make it possible by supporting our last year’s Guiding Light Appeal to fund the project.”

To date, Rosemere Cancer Foundation has paid £800,000 of its total SGRT bill and has received recent grants of £7,500 from the Sir John Fisher Foundation and £2,000 from the Hospital Saturday Fund to help it meet its costs.

Dan said: “We have negotiated an agreement with SGRT’s supplier whereby the equipment is here and working even though we haven’t yet met our final payment. It’s our hope that we will be able to pay off what we owe by the spring.”

Rosemere Cancer Foundation works to bring world class cancer treatment to cancer patients from throughout Lancashire and South Cumbria being treated not only at Rosemere Cancer Centre, which is the region’s specialist cancer treatment and radiotherapy centre at the Royal Preston Hospital, but also at another eight local hospital cancer units across the two counties, including the Royal Lancaster Infirmary. For further information on its work, including how to make a donation, visit www.rosemere.org.uk