A WOMAN being treated for breast cancer has spoken of her research experience after an NHS trial drug is thought to have stopped her tumour from growing before surgery.

Judith Yarrow from Chipping Norton was diagnosed with oestrogen-positive breast cancer in November 2015 after noticing an abnormality.

The grandmother-of-five said during Breast Cancer Awareness Month she first noticed something was wrong after returning from a visit to see her brother in China.

The 64-year-old said: "I went to the doctor immediately and I could tell by the look on her face that she was not optimistic.

"Two weeks after that I saw my consultant at the Horton General Hospital in Banbury and she took one look at it and she said ‘I’m sorry to say that it doesn’t look good’.

"I was just in a state of shock, I’m sure that is the reaction of everybody.

"You think they’re talking to a different person in the room, it can’t be you."

Immediately after her diagnosis Mrs Yarrow was offered to take part in a study to see if enzalutamide, a drug already used to treat prostate cancer, can slow the growth of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) before surgery.

She added: "You always have to wait before having the operation and I was anxious to not get worse beforehand, so it was suggested I went on the trial because it could prevent it from growing.

"The tumour was smaller than they thought it would be when they took it out, so it certainly hadn’t got bigger.

"I’m glad that I was on this trial. It seemed like a no brainer because it’s a stage two trial, so you know it’s been through other tests and you know they wouldn’t put you on it if there wasn’t a good chance it was going to be a good outcome."

Since her surgery in December 2015, Mrs Yarrow is cancer-free and is able to continue her artistic career and spend time with her grandchildren.

She added: "When I was a student, in the early 70s, I had a book called ‘Our Bodies Ourselves’, which had a section about breast cancer treatment.

"When I looked back at that a few months ago, I was amazed to see how much has changed since then.

"You were much less likely to survive a diagnosis of breast cancer and now it’s something you can be treated for and move on in life.

"In those days I would have had a mastectomy, whereas now it’s a lot less invasive, and it’s only because people have been on those trials that treatments are better now.

"I like that feeling of being part of the research and its history."

The study is supported by the NIHR Clinical Research Network Thames Valley and South Midlands.

For more information about research opportunities visit: nihr.ac.uk.