Hundreds of cancer patients participate in clinical trials each year. They take part to give themselves a chance of extra life, to help future generations of cancer sufferers and also to involve them in something positive at an otherwise depressing time. No one is more thankful for the innovative new drugs and therapies tested in the clinical trials than Brian Cramp.

Cramp, a retired electricity distribution engineer, was diagnosed with mesothelioma and given only a few years to live. His right lung was filled with cancerous fluid, making it difficult to breathe, walk up stairs, or even talk a light stroll. He decided that his only choice for a prolonged survival was to participate in a clinical trial.

Cramp had his right lung drained and began to take the first of two experimental drugs. This helped reduce his tumor, but the side effects were unbearable. He said, “Frankly life wasn't worth living because the side-effects were so awful. I had terrible pain in the nerve endings around my toes, I was throwing up, I was in bed most of the time and I couldn't eat what I wanted because my taste buds were messed up.”

However, the second drug taken by Cramp, called Chilob, has shown great results. Chilob is an antibody developed to tell the body’s immune system to fight the cancer. The best part about the drug is that there are, “No side-effects at all,” according to Cramp. Moreover, when doctors compared the scan taken after this trial with the one they'd taken before the trial, it showed that the tumor hadn’t changed and the cancer was stabilized.

Cramp is planning on taking his wife, four children, and four grandchildren on vacation soon and he couldn’t be more excited. “When I booked it in May, I thought it might be our last family holiday together. Now I'm feeling that I might get to go on another one next year.”

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