Little Clacton: Cancer survivor celebrates new treatment (From Clacton and Frinton Gazette)

Little Clacton: Cancer survivor celebrates new treatment

5:27pm Tuesday 7th October 2008 in Local By Sonia Elks

A TESTICULAR cancer survivor has spoken of his happiness at a new drug treatment for the disease.

Darren Couchman, 35, of Barrington Close, had a testicle removed after he was diagnosed with the cancer.

He said the news that an injection can work better than traditional radiotherapy was “wonderful”.

Testicular cancer is the most common form of cancer in young man aged 15-44.

It is usually treated by removing the cancerous area, but it reoccurs in around 1 in 20 cases and can be fatal.

It has usually been treated with a course of radiotherapy, but new research shows that a single injection of the drug carboplatin is more effective in many cases, and gives less side effects.

Mr Couchman said: “It is wonderful.

“When you get news like this, it makes all the campaigning and fundraising worthwhile.

“I have had a lot of men get in touch with me who have just been and are about to have chemotherapy.

“Chemotherapy can play on people's minds.

“It will be so much better for blokes if they do not have to go through weeks of radio therapy.

“It will make a hell of a lot of difference to their lives, hopefully they can now carry on as normal.”

Trials on the drug, caroboplatin, which is already used to treat ovarian and lung cancer, were carried out by a team at Southampton University.

They were looking at using the drug on a cancer type called seminomas, which represent around 45 per cent of cases.

They found that patients treated with the injection were much less likely to suffer a relapse of cancer. They also had less unpleasant side effects from the treatment programme.

The team presented their findings at the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference in Birmingham on Monday.

Dr Mead, from the research team, said: "Giving patients a carboplatin injection rather than radiotherapy is less unpleasant with fewer long-term risks.

"We hope that carboplatin injections will become the standard treatment for this disease across the rest of the world within a few years."

Mr Couchman has been raising awareness of testicular cancer for eight years, and recently released a book about his own experiences called 'One lump or two?'

He gives regular talks on the disease, and will be speaking to students at Colchester Institute's Clacton Campus in Church Road on October 14.