Advanced Brain Cancer: Tissue Freezing Debate
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Clive Jones
Main Page: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)Department Debates - View all Clive Jones's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Advanced Brain Cancer: Tissue Freezing
Clive Jones Excerpts(3 days, 1 hour ago)
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Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) for securing this important debate, and all other hon. Members who have contributed. I would also like to highlight the incredible work done by the campaigners for Owain’s law—you are doing a most remarkable campaign.
Owain was diagnosed with a grade 4 tumour in 2022 and sadly died in 2024. Despite showing success, Owain stopped receiving effective treatment because not enough of his brain tissue was frozen to make further immunotherapy vaccines. Owain’s wife, Ellie, is calling for fair and equal access to brain tissue freezing, enabling every patient to access new treatments and research. The Government need to listen to the campaign, to act and to invest in brain tumour freezing so that we can start to save more lives.
Brain cancer is already the biggest killer of people under 40, and 45% of brain cancers are diagnosed in an emergency setting, meaning that the cancer has progressed untreated and that the patient is more unlikely to tolerate treatment.
Given so many factors affect survival outcomes for brain cancer patients, the Government need to start improving treatment of brain cancer now. Most brain cancer patients in Wokingham cannot access advanced technologies, such as personalised immunotherapy cancer treatments that rely on frozen tissue. The Royal Berkshire NHS foundation trust and the Frimley Health NHS foundation trust do not have any medical-grade freezers suitable for storing tissue samples, and they have no access to the rapid freezing equipment suitable for brain tissue. That situation needs to change.
The cost of providing the right freezers would be small for each hospital trust. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) and other Members who have today called for other tissues to be frozen, not just brain tissue.
Like many other Members today, I am really pleased to see the Minister in her place. I have a very simple question for her: can she confirm that equal access to high-quality tissue storage pathways will be addressed in the upcoming national cancer plan?
Dame Siobhain McDonagh
On a point of order, Mr Western. I want to make a clarification. In my response to the intervention by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding), I mixed up quangos. I suggested that it was the fault of the MHRA that the Oncotherm machine was not in an NHS hospital. It is, of course, the fault of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. I would not want anybody to think that that machine has not been approved and registered by the MHRA.