A mum diagnosed with a deadly cancer has been given extra time with her family thanks to a new experimental drug. Carol Hardy was given the devastating news that she had bile duct cancer by chance after suffering gallstones and suddenly losing weight.
Carol was selected to take part in a clinical trial at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust, with scientists now hopeful that the drug currently keeping Carol alive could also treat a range of other cancers. The tablets - known only as RXC004 - contain a compound that is able to disrupt a pathway known to be over-activated in bile duct cancer patients.
So far, the treatment has been a success - and shrunk Carol's tumour to just over a fifth of the size it was when doctors found it. The 65-year-old, from Penrith in Cumbria, said she experienced "a sinking feeling" when she was first given the heartbreaking diagnosis - and immediately worried about it meant for her husband Simon, 55, and daughter Holly, now 22.
