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Research pulls Warwick back from the brink

Warwick Steele and Dr David Chao

For Warwick Steele, time was nearly up.

Stage four skin cancer, otherwise known as melanoma, had progressed so far that he was unable to stand long enough to even shave.

Numerous tumours in his lungs left him in no doubt what his prognosis was.

“I had months to live,” he said. “When my doctor offered me the chance to take part in a clinical trial, I didn’t have much hesitation in accepting.”

Fortunately, Warwick was under the care of Dr David Chao at London’s Royal Free Hospital. A passionate research advocate, Dr Chao enrolled Warwick on a trial involving two different types of tablet: dabrafinib and trametinib.

Warwick took his first dose on a Saturday, and by Sunday he felt well enough to defrost his fridge.

He said: “Feeling better really lifted my spirits. My health improved and x-rays and scans showed that too, because the tumour had shrunk.”

After some months of good health, Warwick was given the news that the cancer had returned just before he was due to accompany a friend on a cruise to Iceland and Norway.

Happily, as one trial was ending, another was beginning at the Royal Free. Warwick began an immunotherapy trial which involved infusions of a new drug now called Pembrolizumab every three weeks. After about seven or eight weeks, he began to feel better.

After two years, Warwick completed that trial in 2015. He is still well today.

“I knew virtually nothing about research,” the 69-year-old from Ruislip admitted. “I knew it was being done but I didn’t really know who by.

“I was lucky. Lucky to get to the Royal Free, lucky to be treated by Dr Chao and lucky that he was running trials. I didn’t have any option as I only had a few months left, but I would certainly tell anyone who was given the chance to take part in research to consider it.”

The treatments that Warwick had are now standard care within the NHS for advanced melanoma patients.

Dr Chao, who is also deputy Clinical Director of the National Institute for Health Research Clinical Research Network North Thames, which supports the delivery of research in parts of London, Essex and Hertfordshire, said: “Warwick's story is essentially the story of how research has dramatically improved the outlook for patients with this previously untreatable cancer.  Research is about hope and there is nothing more rewarding than seeing that hope fulfilled.”

There were 78,584 research participants in NHS trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups in the North Thames region in 2018/19. Nationally, over 870,000 people participated in health and social care research across England.

The figures come from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

The NIHR, England’s largest funder of health and social care research, ranks NHS trusts by the number of research studies they support in its Research Activity League Table. The table also tallies the number of research participants recruited by each trust.

For more information on how research-active the NHS trust in your town is, visit www.nihr.ac.uk/nihrleaguetable.