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Immunotherapy has been a “life-saver”

When Mark Harrigan was diagnosed with advanced bladder cancer at the age of 54, he was given just 10 months to live.

But four years later, the former police officer is living with his cancer thanks to an immunotherapy treatment which he calls a “life-saver”.

Mark first noticed something was wrong in early 2016 when he kept having to get up at night to go to the toilet.

“The doctor diagnosed me with a urine infection and put me on antibiotics,” says Mark. “But after several months of suspected infections and more courses of antibiotics, blood began appearing in my urine and I was sent for a cystoscopy to examine my bladder.”

“I actually saw the inside of my bladder on the screen while the procedure was happening, and I saw what looked like a growth. At that point I knew myself that it was cancer, even though the official diagnosis had not been made.”

Less than a month later Mark went to A&E when he was unable to pass urine and became ill. He underwent a TURBT operation, a procedure to remove early cancer from the bladder. He was then given the news that not only was the cancer in his bladder, but it had also spread to the prostate and he was started on chemotherapy.

“At 54, I was quite young to be diagnosed with bladder cancer. I remember the doctor who carried out the TURBT operation saying it was fairly rare for someone my age to be having the procedure. I was working as a driver at the time, having retired from the police force, but I had to give that up. The chemotherapy made me extremely sick, so it did impact on my life.”

In March 2017, after only four rounds of chemotherapy, Mark became very poorly and went back to hospital where he was told the cancer had spread to the base of his spine.

“By this stage, surgery to remove the bladder was not an option, and I was told my treatment would be palliative. I didn’t want to know my prognosis, but I later found out that the doctors thought I had around 10 months to live.”

“Then the following week, Dr Crabb called and asked me how I felt about trying an immunotherapy treatment called atezolizumab. I’d never heard of immunotherapy; the word didn’t mean anything to me. Dr Crabb explained that the treatment was fairly new and was still in some trials but was being offered to some patients on the NHS.”

Mark, who is now 58 and lives in Lyndhurst in the New Forest with his husband Lee, has a monthly infusion of atezolizumab at home and scans every three months to keep an eye on his tumour. He says the treatment has kept him alive.

“For me, immunotherapy has been a pure life-saver and I’m still here over four years later. I do have side-effects, some stomach upsets and serious fatigue, but without this treatment I probably wouldn’t be here. Although my cancer isn’t curable, it’s still being treated. The tumour will always be there because it’s in the bones, but the immunotherapy stabilises everything.”

“Sadly though, we know that immunotherapy doesn’t work for everyone or for all tumours. Therefore, it’s vital that trials like the BL-13 trial continue to happen, as the more research we can do to find new immunotherapies, the more people like me will be able to benefit.”

The BL-13 study originated from the Canadian Clinical Trials Group and the trial has already opened in Canada and Spain. The CRUK Southampton Clinical Trials Unit is running the UK part of the study with the first patients recruited at University Hospital Southampton, the Royal Marsden Hospital and the Royal Cornwall Hospital. The trial is also open at the Christie in Manchester, with several more sites due to open in the coming months.

The trial is being funded by therapeutics company AstraZeneca who make Durvalumab and has been endorsed by Cancer Research UK, which allows the trial team access to NHS resources to assist in running the study.

Watch a video on the BL-13 trial: