A family's life in the shadow of cancer

3:02am Thursday 28th February 2008

MOTHER-OF-TWO Amanda Monaghan has been living with the shadow of cancer over her family for most of her life.

When she was 11, her mother, Sheila, was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Little did she know as she was growing up that she had inherited a fault in her BRCA2 gene, a genetic condition that often leads to breast cancer.

Yesterday, she sat alongside Cancer Research UK scientists at Newcastle University and described how their new drug would give cancer patients such as her new hope for the future.

Ms Monaghan, 36, who lives in West Allotment, North Tyneside, said: "My mum, Sheila, developed breast cancer when she was 32.

"Eleven years later, she found out she had it in her other breast, and eight years after that, she found out that she had cancer of the uterus."

Her mother had radiotherapy and chemotherapy in an attempt to combat her cancer, and battled her illness for years.

But in December 2005, aged 55, she died of endometrial cancer.

Ms Monaghan discovered she had breast cancer in January 2005, when she was 32 -the same age as her mother - only weeks before her mother was diagnosed with cancer for the final time.

While Ms Monaghan was being treated with surgery and radiotherapy, she also nursed her terminally ill mother.

After genetic testing in November last year, Ms Monaghan was told she had inherited a fault in the BRCA2 gene, which made her more likely to develop breast cancer.

Ms Monaghan believes the trial is important for women such as her.

She said: "When my mum was very ill with cancer, there was nothing more the doctors could offer her. This trial means that there could be an option in the future for women like me and my mum."

Cancer drug expert Professor Hilary Calvert has been working on the concept of Parp inhibitors since he joined Newcastle University in 1990.

In 2003, a team at Newcastle under Professor Nicola Curtin showed that the theory behind the new drug worked.

Initially thought of as a way of making chemotherapy or radiotherapy more effective, Professor Thomas Helliday, from Sheffield University, came up with the crucial idea of using it as therapy in its own right.

Prof Calvert said: "We have come up with a drug which is quite remarkable."

To take part in the trial, visit cancerhelp.org.uk or ring 0808-800-4040.

Entertainment