A woman with deadly bile duct cancer is surviving against all the odds thanks to a new experimental drug. Carol Hardy, 65, is taking part in a clinical trial at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester, and doctors hope the drug may eventually be used for a range of cancers.
The tablets, known only as RXC004, contain a compound that blocks a pathway known to be over-activated in bile duct cancer. So far, the treatment is working and has shrunk Ms Hardy’s tumour to just over a fifth of its original size.
Bile duct cancer is rare, with around 1,000 new cases every year in the UK. It does not usually cause symptoms in the early stages but can lead to jaundice, itchy skin, weight loss and pain as it progresses.
Most people with bile duct cancer already have advanced cancer by the time they are diagnosed, with the disease having spread to other parts of the body. Treatment is usually chemotherapy but only around 5% of people live for five years or more after diagnosis.
Ms Hardy, from Penrith in Cumbria, discovered she had bile duct cancer by chance about four years ago after suffering gallstones. She had also been losing weight without trying.
She told the PA news agency she had a “sinking feeling” when first diagnosed and was worried about what it meant for her husband Simon, now 55, and daughter Holly, now 22. “I can remember being sat on the seat next to my husband,” she explained. “All I can say is, it is as if your chair has been shot back down a dark passage.
“I heard somebody say something, but as the doctor touched my arm and said something to me, I realised it was me that had spoken. “My words were, ‘I can’t have cancer, I can’t die because my daughter is only 18'."
During a long operation, Ms Hardy’s gallbladder was removed and she was given the all-clear from cancer. But the following year, a scan showed cancer on her liver and in some lymph nodes, confirming that the disease had spread.
Ms Hardy was referred to the Christie in Manchester and started a trial of immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy. This shrank her liver tumour down from 2.4cm in September 2020 to 0.9cm in December 2020 and even further to 0.3cm in November 2021.
However, medics found another small tumour on her liver a few months later. Ms Hardy was then put on the trial testing RXC004 and has been on the drug since February.
In the most recent scans, Ms Hardy’s liver tumour has shrunk from 3.3cm in February to 0.7cm now. She said she has always been determined to fight the disease.
Ms Hardy is being treated by Professor Juan Valle, a leading expert in biliary tract cancer (which includes bile duct cancer) and member of national and international research groups dedicated to improving treatments for patients with the disease. He said that about 10 to 15 years ago there were no trials at all for these rare cancers.
The Christie has two groups testing the new drug - Carol and one other patient with biliary tract cancer, and two patients with pancreatic cancer.
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