Doctor reveals how ‘brutal’ therapy tackled Rhod Gilbert’s cancer

“One patient once told me it was brutal. That really haunts me because it’s hard to go through.”

This is a cancer treatment that Professor Mererid Evans regularly prescribes to people who come to her in the hope that it will save lives, and which she is trying to improve through research she leads. The aims.

This is the same word used by Welsh comedian Lord Gilbert when he sat in front of a consultant oncologist after being diagnosed with throat, neck, tongue and tonsil cancer in 2022. It was a word.

Her consulting room at Cardiff’s Berindre Cancer Center was suddenly thrust into the spotlight after one of her famous patients made a documentary about his treatment.

“Mr Lord was hoping that something positive would come out of his experience,” said Lord, head and neck specialist at Cardiff’s Berindre Cancer Center and professor in the department of cancer and genetics at Cardiff University. Professor Evans, 54, who is also director of the Wales Cancer Research Centre, said:

“We talked about the treatment he would be receiving, and I think he felt it was an opportunity to highlight what it’s like to undergo cancer treatment.”

According to Cancer Research UK, around 12,500 new cases are diagnosed each year and the incidence is increasing. Approximately 4,000 people die from this disease each year.

Professor Evans discovered that the film was due to be filmed days before the comedian’s treatment began.

“I don’t think he realized before he started how much of an impact documenting his journey would have. This is his job, so it was something he wanted to do for himself. I think so,” she added.

“And he felt he could turn a very difficult experience into something positive.

“That’s what made him reflect on his actions, and I think it raised a lot of awareness and hopefully helped people who were in a similar situation to him.”

Professor Evans tried to maintain normal interaction during the consultation, even though a film crew was present.

Mr Gilbert was treated with radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which Professor Evans said was “particularly difficult” with head and neck cancer.

“If you have a tumor or cancer in the back of the throat, in the tonsils, in the back of the tongue, on the mouth, if you try to treat it with radiation therapy, you’re actually going to cause a big ulcer. The patient’s mouth and throat are It gets worse over six weeks,” she added.

“Side effects include dry mouth, loss of taste, ulcers that make swallowing very painful and difficult, and as we have seen, may require a tube placed in the abdomen to provide nutrition. [happen to him] in the documentary. ”

It also causes fatigue that can take months to recover from, and the effects are even worse if the patient is also undergoing chemotherapy, which can cause nausea, vomiting and infections, he added.

Another particularly serious side effect for performers is vocal changes.

“Radiotherapy to the head and neck causes swelling and inflammation within the voice box,” she explained.

“It’s not uncommon for your voice to become hoarse during treatment, and it doesn’t necessarily get better. So it was really scary. For someone who uses their voice for a living, that’s obviously a big fear. did.”

Gilbert also repeated this on the show.

One of the first things he said was, “I’m worried that the radiation treatment will seriously damage my voice.I work on my feet, so this treatment might save my life. It could ruin your career.”

Gilbert’s cancer is caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV) and is commonly associated with cervical cancer.

The HPV vaccination program for girls was introduced in 2008 to combat cervical cancer and was given at the age of 12 or 13.

Professor Evans has been involved in two studies that looked at the prevalence of HPV cancer in men, which the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization subsequently supported in 2019 to extend the HPV vaccine to boys. “It was a very challenging thing to do,” he said.

The HPV vaccination program for girls has reduced cervical cancer rates by nearly 90% in girls first vaccinated at age 12 or 13, reducing the number of precancerous cells that can lead to cervical cancer. A 97% reduction in change was observed.

“One would imagine that if the HPV vaccine were given to everyone, coverage should be effectively zero,” she said.

“The challenge is to ensure that vaccination rates remain high and prevent local transmission, but that will take a long time.

“In the meantime, there will be a large number of people with HPV-related cancers, and we need to treat them.”

Part of her job now is to lead a trial with Professor Terry Jones from the University of Liverpool to look at gentler treatments that are equally effective.

court case known as pathosusing minimally invasive surgery with robotic or laser techniques and lower doses of chemotherapy or radiation therapy.

Professor Evans believes that an advantage of the documentary was that it allowed patients to see how they were coping with treatment outside of the hospital.

“I think it was incredibly brave of him to open up about what his experience was like. It wasn’t just the physical thing, it was the emotional thing that the treatment had to overcome for him. It was a physical and mental challenge.”

“We don’t often see that aspect of a patient’s progress, because when a patient comes into the clinic, we have very specific questions like, ‘How’s your swallowing? How’s your pain? Are you using mouthwash?’ Because I’m talking about real things.”

“It’s not a space where you can face the reality of living with something every minute of every day, every hour of every day, when it’s often very difficult.”