Radiologists call for better access to kidney cancer treatment
It comes as NICE release their clinical guidelines today
As radiologists call for a treatment for kidney cancer to be accessible to all; we're hearing from a man from Liverpool who travelled hundreds of miles to to access the life-saving care.
It comes as NICE issues new guidelines today, which are expected to offer more patients the option of different treatments.
Mike Turnstall travelled hundreds of miles to Southampton for the treatment, after losing one kidney to cancer previously.
He said: "I went for the Cryoablation because obviously there was a small risk in the operation that I'd lose the whole kidney.
"Then because I'd already had one taken previously, I'd be left with no kidney, so I'd be on dialysis and possibly need to do a transplant."
Cryoablation works with ice to freeze and destroy tumours on the kidneys, and can allow patients to be in and out of hospital faster.
Mr Turnstall was diagnosed initially with kidney cancer in 2009, having a full left nephrectomy, where one of his kidneys was removed.
He experienced a reoccurrence of the cancer in 2016 in the solitary kidney.
He told us how important this treatment was for him.
He said: "Without that, I'd have been going into operation with the serious potential of long-term consequences of already having no kidneys with dialysis and maybe being on a waiting list until somebody came forward to offer a kidney for me."
Mr Turnstall's joining the calls of Dr Alex King, a Southampton Consultant Radiologist, and Andrew Greaves, General Manager of Kidney Cancer UK, for the treatment to be more widely available.
It's as the treatment is reportedly under a "postcode lottery" with many hospitals not offering it.
Dr Alex King works as a Consultant Radiologist at the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, where the Cryoablation treatment was first pioneered.
He said: "We often see patients who have come to us saying 'I had to look this up on the internet because my doctor didn't offer it to me because it isn't available where I live'.
"Now, we've trained a lot of people around the UK and other centres are growing, but there's still a huge lack of knowledge that this is available."
"There was a survey from Kidney Cancer UK that said only 3% of patients with kidney cancer even knew this existed.
"So the real drive is now that the NICE guidance is telling us we should allow patients a choice, that this is part of those choices.
"Patients, wherever they are in the UK, should be told that this is available.
"Then it becomes the healthcare responsibility to provide that service.
"At the moment, it's not available everywhere, but that's a challenge for us in the next few years."