A woman who was only given three years to live after a heart breaking diagnosis is now cancer free - thanks to a 'miracle' treatment. Judy Perkins's cancer journey first began back in 2003 when she was informed she had stage zero breast cancer and she had a mastectomy, chemotherapy and hormone therapy.
The treatment was successful and the mum-of-two from Florida believed she was cancer free until she received the devastating news ten years later that her breast cancer had returned and that she was at Stage IV. The 56-year-old engineer had been told her diagnosis was terminal and given a life expectancy of around three years, the Mirror reports.
However, she turned to an experimental treatment at the National Institute of Health in 2015 and she is now miraculously cancer free. Judy said she had fully accepted her situation and that her husband and their two sons, Chris and Charlie were prepared for the worst outcome.
After spending two years undergoing chemotherapy to extend her life the cancer only spread and Judy developed a 'bunch of tumours'. The mum pushed her doctor for a prognosis and was told she had about three years left to live as Judy said her 'quality of life had deteriorated rapidly'.
However, things turned around when Judy signed up for a new treatment in 2015 where scientists harvested her immune cells and multiplied them in a lab before injecting her with 80 billion of them. She was also given an immunotherapy drug that helped Judy's system and her condition started to improve.
Miraculously, only five months after treatment began Judy underwent a scan that showed she was now cancer free and since then she has remained entirely healthy. She told SurvivorNet: "Things haven't really changed. I'm continuing to go back for scans.
"They now have me on the annual plan, so I only have to go back once a year, and things there remain very uneventful, for which I am quite happy." Judy explained: "This treatment has been used for well over a decade now.
"Almost everyone who has had a complete response has remained cancer free. I'm not wasting time worrying about whether my cancer is coming back. I feel cured. I feel awesome."
Judy had previously appeared on ITV's This Morning show with Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford to discuss her 'death sentence' diagnosis. She told the hosts about the Immunotherapy trial and met with Stephanie Goff, M.D., of the National Cancer Institute's Center for Cancer Research.
Stephanie had been teaching a class about immunotherapy for project Lead to educate people about breast cancer and encouraged Judy to enrol for a clinical trial she was conducting. Judy started her treatment in August 2013 and said she could feel the tumour 'shrinking' so she knew it was 'working'.
The trial, which involved injecting Judy with billions of white blood cells, saw her tumours shrink 'by 60 per cent'. This Morning's Dr Zoe explained that the treatment involved using your own immune system to combat the cancer.
When asked how she was feeling now she was cancer-free, Judy said: "It's been a gradual process, I've just recently added more bucket list items to my plate... but I would caution that while this treatment has been magical for me it hasn't been magical for others."
To this day, Judy is still healthy and was able to watch her sons grow up having been given a second chance at life. Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in the UK and around 55,000 women and 370 men are diagnosed with it each year.
About one in eight women suffer from breast cancer during their lifetime and there is a high chance of recovery if it's found at an early stage. Most women diagnosed with breast cancer are over 50-years-old but younger women can also get breast cancer as well as men in rare cases.
Common symptoms include a change in the shape or size of one or both breasts, lumps or swelling in the armpits and dimpling of the skin.
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