Mother with breast cancer's £100k plea to see children grow up

Fighting chance: Helen Munro with husband Finch and their children Lola and Lupe

A woman with incurable breast cancer has launched a £100,000 appeal for pioneering treatment in the hope of seeing her two young children grow up.

Helen Munro, from Leyton, wants to travel to Germany to receive an immunotherapy drug not available on the NHS.

She discovered a lump in her breast in a changing room in August 2017. After a mammogram and biopsy, she was told she had breast cancer and that it had spread to her lymph nodes.

Two weeks later she was told it had spread to her bones and that the cancer was classed as “stage four”, which is regarded as incurable.

Mrs Munro, who runs the Finch London bespoke furniture design firm with husband Finch, is mother to Lola, five, and Lupe, three.

She said: “The prognosis isn’t great, but there are people who have been cured at stage four. It may not be successful. But I want to know I have given it the best chance. I have two young children and a loving husband and I want to do as much as I can.”

The 39-year-old is receiving NHS care at St Bartholomew’s hospital, in Smithfield, and is also being advised by a US molecular oncologist.

Mrs Munro was initially given palbociclib, which shrank the oestrogen-positive tumour by a third, but it stopped working within a year. She discovered the cancer had spread to her liver.

She has sent blood and DNA samples to the US for analysis and hopes that by travelling to Germany she can receive an experimental “neoepitope” immunotherapy vaccine that is targeted at her tumour. Another idea is to “repurpose” metformin, a drug normally used to treat type-2 diabetes.

Mrs Munro says the immunotherapy has had “amazing results” in some patients. Almost 1,800 donors have raised £73,000 so far on her Crowdfunder page, enabling her to place an order for her therapy to be developed. She aims to reach £100,000.

She will have to visit Germany monthly for two years to receive the treatment.

“The NHS is fantastic but is very restricted by guidelines,” Mrs Munro said. “I will try to use it as much as I can. I want to give myself the best possible chance. A stage four diagnosis is basically incurable.

“I’ve been blown away by the kindness and generosity of friends and family but also people who don’t even know me. It restores your faith in humanity.”

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