Chemotherapy 'as simple as taking a pill' for Jim thanks to new treatment

Published on Tuesday 21 October 2008 09:50

WHEN Jim Miller was told he needed chemotherapy, he envisaged six months of hospital visits and time off work.

He had just been operated on for bowel cancer, and needed the treatment to ensure the cancer wouldn't return or spread.

But instead of frequent visits to the hospital to be connected up to daunting machines, he was given a course of chemotherapy tablets, which he could take without even having to leave his armchair.

The pills were little known when the planning consultant from the New Town was given access to them, but an announcement by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has confirmed the capecitabine tablets will now be available on the NHS across Scotland for those in the advanced stages of bowel cancer.

It means for people who have hope of recovery they can maintain a reasonably normal lifestyle while enduring chemotherapy, and for those in whom the cancer has spread too greatly, their last few months are considerably more comfortable.

And for Mr Miller, 54, the benefits were plain to see.

He said: "By taking tablets at home you feel like it is much more manageable. I did sometimes find myself gagging at the prospect of taking all those tablets, but compared to the usual chemotherapy, it really is just as simple as swallowing a few pills.

"It doesn't have the complications and inconvenience of going to a centre and getting hooked up. It's certainly less daunting."

After Mr Miller was diagnosed in 2006 he was one of a few to be offered the treatment, but the endorsement from the SMC means anyone with metastatic – or advanced stages – bowel cancer will be offered it.

Around 200 people a year in the Lothians die from colorectal cancer, and it is the third most lethal type of cancer in Scotland. But Mr Miller said he took a positive approach to treatment, largely thanks to the news he would be able to take chemo tablets.

"I was about to go through a major life experience and it was important how I conduct myself during this trying time," he said.

"After serious consideration I concluded that honesty, dignity and openness would be my watchwords, and in view of the location of the operation, a little bit of good humour would not go amiss.

"The very word chemotherapy generates a deep intake of breath in most people. It was a real hammer blow to be informed by the hospital less than three weeks after surgery that I would require six months of chemotherapy."

Over the course of the treatment, Mr Miller had to take around 1600 tablets.

He added: "It was hard work, mentally demanding and physically exhausting, but I managed to negotiate my way through a difficult six-month period with a smile and occasional laugh."

Jim Cassidy, professor of oncology at the specialist cancer unit the Beatson Centre in Glasgow and a former Edinburgh University lecturer, added: "Capecitabine is an excellent treatment option for patients, both in terms of survival and convenience.

"Intravenous regimes have been the gold standard of bowel cancer treatment for many years, but today's announcement from the SMC further supports the case for us to update our clinical practice and ensure that all eligible metastatic colorectal cancer patients are offered capecitabine instead."

POSITIVE ATTITUDE

JIM MILLER puts his full recovery from cancer down to a positive attitude adopted while undergoing treatment.

He said if it hadn't been for the decision he took to face up positively to the disease, which is the third biggest cancer killer in Scotland, the outcome may not have been so rosy.

He said: "In preparation for my surgery I wanted to present myself to my surgeon with a fit body and a healthy state of mind, not an easy task.

"I decided to get on my bike. In the two weeks preceding surgery I explored Edinburgh's extensive network of cycle tracks, occasionally stopping off for a glass of Guinness.

"This culminated in a great Sunday outing with two friends along the coast to North Berwick in glorious sunshine."

Jim was given the all-clear last year.