Why Debbie is so 'happily shocked'

A WOMAN who contracted asbestos-related lung cancer after hugging her dockyard worker father is in remission after experimental treatment in Germany.

Plymouth mother of three Debbie Brewer this week returned from her sixth and final chemoembolisation session at the University Clinic, Frankfurt.

Doctors told her the tumour has shrunk by 53 per cent since she started the treatment in May.

Each session cost £3,500, which she paid for herself from a six-figure compensation payment from the Ministry of Defence.

Now she plans to campaign to make the treatment available in England for people with mesothelioma, a lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos.

Debbie, aged 49 and from Eggbuckland, said: "I'm absolutely thrilled and still trying to take it in.

"I received the results that showed there's been a 53 per cent shrinkage and the growth is in partial remission.

"The doctor said the tumour is dead and it may not come back.

"I couldn't believe it – I was so happily shocked because I didn't think I'd ever hear the word 'remission' with this cancer."

More commonly used to treat liver cancer, chemoembolisation involves introducing chemotherapy drugs directly to the tumour area through a catheter into the lung, rather than into the whole system.

Debbie said: "I've had two years of nightmare but to get this result was fantastic.

"It doesn't feel like it's hanging over our heads any more.

"The cancer may come back, it may not, but I know that, if it does, there's something out there that can help me.

"It would be nice if other people with mesothelioma could have this opportunity. Not everyone can pay for it themselves.

"I'm going to start a campaign to get clinical trials for the treatment in the UK", she said.

Professor Thomas Vogl, of the University Clinic, was recommended to Debbie by Harley Street doctor Etienne Callebout and by other people with cancer through her website www.mesothelioma-and-me. co.uk

Debbie said Prof Vogl, who treated about five mesothelioma patients a year using the method, had a 60 per cent success rate with the treatment on lung cancer.

She is due to return to Germany in March to receive the results of the sixth treatment.

She received more than £100,000 from the MoD in November last year – 11 months after she made her initial claim.

Debbie said her cancer was caused when, as a child, she hugged her father returning from work in his asbestos-contaminated overalls. She was diagnosed with mesothelioma in November 2006.

Her father Phillip Northmore was an asbestos lagger at Devonport Dockyard between 1961 and 1966.