CAROLINE Morton has been taking Kadcyla as part of a clinical trial for almost four years.
Thanks to the treatment, she is now looking forward to celebrating her 50th birthday in January, and has returned to her job four days a week, supporting children with additional support needs.
The mother of three, from Perth, was originally diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005. She received radiotherapy and was eventually given the all-clear. Five years later, Mrs Morton was told at a routine six-month check-up that she had secondary breast cancer, after cancerous cells were detected elsewhere in her body.
"It was totally devastating," she said. "For the first six months all I did was cry. I was asked to go on a drug trial at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. You don't have a lot of options, so I said yes."
After six months of being diagnosed for a second time, she adopted a more optimistic approach to life. As a result of Kadcyla, some of her tumours have even begun to reduce in size.
"I can't know what would have happened if I hadn't been put on the trial, but obviously this drug has worked a lot better than I thought it was going to. There are side-effects, but it's nothing major compared to really harsh chemotherapy. It's not going to cure you and make tumours go away, but they do stabilise.
"I'm really disappointed by the decision not to approve it. Yes, it's a lot of money, but so many women would benefit. And the drug company isn't going to make money if no-one can take it."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article