“As it was my 70th Birthday on 6th June and thank goodness I have my good health!!
I decided to organise a party to fund raise and support the charity close to my heart OPA.

My brother Brian served in the West Midlands police for 30yrs he was very fit and healthy at the age of 48, till he started showing the signs of this awful disease oesophageal cancer. We knew nothing about the systems of this disease which is one reason now why I want to help make people aware of the systems, its at times like this we need support for the patient and the families going through it.

We had a fantastic night in memory of Brian, I had over 30 raffle prizes and some amazing hand made items and paintings donated by our Sister Sally for the silent auction which that alone reached over £700, I made little goody boxes for every one containing cakes ,chocs, an OPA badge and of course a leaflet with what signs to look out for in this disease.

Music by DJ and entertainer Mark Tolliss and a personal friend sang 60s / 70s for us to dance to. In total the evening raised £4,000, for the OPA.  I am still over whelmed by the whole evening and generosity of people, it was so worth while organising it and a night to remember forever.

Mo xx”

More photos and videos can be found here- https://opa.org.uk/opa-gallery/

My name is Mike, I suppose I deserved my cancer!

After years of smoking, drinking alcohol to excess and bad diet choices I suffered with acid reflux and was diagnosed with a hiatus hernia in 1987 at a Bupa Hospital in Harpenden, but wasn’t told anything about what to do or what it could lead to.

Fast forward to around July 2017 when I had a medication review, by this time it was being controlled by tablets and Endoscopies. I was told I was overdue for an endoscopy which I thought was recent, turned out it was 6 years ago rather than every year that they suggested.

The following fortnight I made an appointment with the doctor for 3 things.

  • I had burnt my armpits using a new flavour of Right Guard deodorant.
  • I was getting bad night cramps
  • I had a strange feeling in my tummy which was a tummy ache, just strange and had been there for about 2 weeks.

Little did I know that that tin of Right Guard was to save my life!

I was given a cream for my armpits. Tablets for the night cramps and sent for an Endoscopy a week later.

I was sent a letter from the consultant asking me to attend an appointment at Bedford Hospital where they conducted the endoscopy on 4th October 2017 and I was told I had a cancer at the base of my oesophagus where it joined the stomach.

They had already had a video call meeting to discuss my case with Addenbrooks Hospital.

I left the appointment that I attended on my own and cried when I got in my car. I rang my wife who was at work and told her.

An appointment was made to try a laser endoscopy to burn it out but it wasn’t an option then to see one of only 6 surgeons in the country who could do key hole surgery to remove my oesophagus and stretch my stomach to replace it.

On January 30th 2018 (isn’t it funny that you remember the exact dates ) I had a 8.5 hour operation in which they also sewed up a hernia and took my appendix out while they were there.

The operation was a complete success and no need for chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

I was supposed to be in for 3 nights and come out with a feeding tube. Unfortunately, I complicated it by having a stroke on ICU the next day. It wiped out my right side completely, I woke up 12 days later, with a tracheotomy and not being able to move.

I was in hospital and rehab until 21st June 2018.

Here I am 6 years later, can eat well, can walk and use my right arm, still have right side weakness and only one step away from a face plant but a survivor.

I am a typical bloke who didn’t look after myself and left things too long, but well done for burning my armpits Right Guard!

^(A UHS nurse, Danielle Harding, and consultant general and oesophagogastric surgeon at UHS Fergus Noble. Danielle Harding, 30, is the first patient with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease to undergo the RefluxStop procedure at UHS (University Hospital Southampton/PA Wire)

The first patients in the UK have had a new device implanted to prevent severe acid reflux disease.

University Hospital Southampton (UHS) and Imperial College London have become the first NHS trusts in the country to install the device called the RefluxStop, with Southampton being the first to use robotic surgery for the procedure.

Known as gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD), the condition occurs when contents from the stomach flow back into the oesophagus – the long tube that carries food from the throat to the stomach.

This can result in a range of symptoms including heartburn, regurgitation, difficulty swallowing, bloating, excessive salivation, coughing, nausea and a hoarse voice, as well as teeth and gum damage, nutritional problems, and sleep impairment.

It happens when the muscular valve – the lower oesophageal sphincter – at the bottom of the oesophagus becomes weakened because it has moved too close to the diaphragm or even into the chest which affects its function to allow food in and stop acid leaking out.”

This article is from the Independent, to continue reading click here – First patients in UK receive revolutionary device to stop acid reflux and heartburn | The Independent

If you would like more information on RefluxStop, check out our leaflet here- RefluxStop Leaflet – The OPA

“Findings from the phase 3 ESOPEC trial demonstrate an overall survival advantage with a perioperative chemotherapy regimen known as FLOT compared with a neoadjuvant chemoradiation approach, called CROSS, in patients with resectable, locally advanced esophageal adenocarcinoma.

The study results, presented as a late-breaking abstract at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual conference, help settle a long-standing debate about whether chemotherapy with FLOT — 5-florouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin, and docetaxel — before and after surgery, or neoadjuvant radiation plus CROSS — carboplatin and paclitaxel — followed by surgery is the best approach.

There has been “considerable disagreement as to whether giving all adjuvant therapy upfront versus ‘sandwich’ adjuvant therapy before and after surgery is the better standard of care for locally advanced resectable esophageal cancer,” Jennifer Tseng, MD, of Boston Medical Center, Boston, said in an ASCO press release. This randomized clinical trial shows the sandwich approach “provides better outcomes.”

The practice-changing ESOPEC findings will have an important effect on the management of patients with resectable esophageal adenocarcinoma and gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma, but local and distant failures remain a challenge in this population, explained invited discussant Karyn A. Goodman, MD.

Advances since the initiation of ESOPEC — such as immunotherapy options and personalized strategies — suggest the esophageal adenocarcinoma story is still evolving, said Goodman, professor and vice-chair of research and quality in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City.

The ESOPEC trial

Both the FLOT and CROSS regimens are established standards of care in resectable esophageal adenocarcinoma, and the choice of treatment has largely varied based on geographical location.

The current randomized, prospective, open-label ESOPEC trial, however, demonstrated that FLOT can prolong overall survival, first author Jens Hoeppner, MD, from the University of Bielefeld in Detmold, Germany, reported.

Overall, 438 patients with locally advanced, resectable esophageal adenocarcinoma recruited between February 2016 and April 2020 from 25 sites in Germany and randomized to either FLOT (n = 221) or CROSS (n = 217). The median age was 63 years, and most (89.3%) were men. Patients were followed until November 2023, and median follow-up was 55 months.

Patients in the FLOT arm received four cycles — one every 2 weeks for 8 weeks —followed by surgery 4-6 weeks later. FLOT cycles were reinitiated 4-6 weeks after surgery and given every 2 weeks for 8 weeks.

Those in the CROSS arm received one cycle per week of radiation therapy for 5 weeks plus carboplatin and paclitaxel followed by surgery 4-6 weeks after the last cycle.

Overall, 86% received both neoadjuvant therapy and surgery in the FLOT arm vs 82.9% in the CROSS group. Among these patients, 16.8% in the FLOT group achieved a pathological complete remission vs 10.0% in the CROSS arm.

In the intention-to-treat population, median overall survival was almost twice as long in the FLOT group — 66 months vs 37 months. At 3 years, those who received FLOT had a 30% lower risk of dying (hazard ratio [HR], 0.70), with 57.4% patients alive at that point compared with 50.7% patients in the CROSS arm.

The 5-year overall survival was 50.6% in the FLOT group vs 38.7% in the CROSS group.

Patients receiving FLOT also demonstrated improved progression-free survival (PFS), with a median PFS of 38 months vs 16 months. The 3-year PFS was 51.6% with FLOT vs 35.0% with CROSS (HR, 0.66). The exploratory subgroup analyses for sex, age, ECOG status, and clinical T and N stages also favored FLOT.

The 30-day postoperative mortality was 1.0% in the FLOT group and 1.7% in the CROSS group, and the 90-day postoperative mortality rate was 3.2% and 5.6%, respectively.

Based on these findings, perioperative chemotherapy with FLOT should be preferred over neoadjuvant chemoradiation with CROSS, Hoeppner concluded.

Goodman agreed, noting that, in the wake of ESOPEC, FLOT will likely be adopted as a more standard approach in the United States for patients who are fit. And, for patients who are not candidates for FLOT, CROSS is a reasonable option, she said.

But, she asked, does it really have to be an either/or situation?

Multiple studies, including Goodman’s 2021 Alliance/CALGB 80803 study, have demonstrated promising outcomes with combined modalities and adapting therapy based on treatment response. Several trials, for instance, are evaluating combining FLOT and CROSS, with some showing the approach is feasible and comes with manageable toxicity.

It’s also important to look outside of FLOT and CROSS. During ESOPEC, new approaches entered the treatment landscape, including the use of adjuvant immunotherapy following neoadjuvant chemoradiation and surgery for noncomplete response.

Take the CheckMate 577 study, which found that adjuvant nivolumab immunotherapy after preoperative CROSS and surgery significantly reduced metastatic recurrence and doubled disease-free survival in patients who did not achieve a complete response. This approach is now a standard of care for those patients.

FLOT plus neoadjuvant nivolumab may also be a viable option, Goodman noted, but we haven’t yet seen “any benefit in survival with the combo of chemotherapy and immunotherapy for resectable esophago-gastric cancer.”

Further studies are needed to evaluate the synergy of immunotherapy and radiotherapy. The next chapter of the esophageal adenocarcinoma story may feature a “best-of-both-worlds” approach that combines induction chemotherapy, followed by personalized chemoradiation, surgery, and potentially adjuvant immunotherapy, Goodman explained.

While the ESOPEC findings are impressive, the 5-year overall survival of only 50% is still suboptimal, she noted. “Given the poor prognosis with this disease, we need to continue to develop clinical trials to identify better targets, novel treatment combinations, and select patients that will respond best to specific treatment.”

ESOPEC was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation). Hoeppner reported receiving travel, accommodations, and expenses from Intuitive Surgical. Goodman reported a relationship with the national Cancer Institute and consulting or advisory roles for Novartis, Philips healthcare, RenovoRX, and Roche/Genentech.”

 

This article is from: Medscape Registration

An online focus group looking at how you would like your child to be treated for gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD)

We are currently working in collaboration with Reckitt Benckiser PLC regarding a funded research study exploring the experiences of parents of infants with symptoms of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD), or reflux for short.

Study Summary

“What: A 60-minute discussion about your preferences for managing your child’s symptoms of GORD

Where: Zoom

When: To be decided

Will I be reimbursed: Yes, we are providing £60 as a bank transfer for participation in the research.

Who is this for: The research is being conducted on behalf of Reckitt Benckiser Group plc. Anonymised data (without personally identifiable information) will be shared with the funder.

Why are we conducting this research: We wish to better understand how parents of children with symptoms of heartburn and/or indigestion wish for their children to be managed.

What happens if I agree: You will be contacted (via e-mail) by a member of the research team who will provide you with additional information regarding the study, in the form of a participant information sheet. We will also provide you with a consent form. We will do this ahead of the date and time of the focus group, allowing you time to reconsider your participation if you wish. If you choose to take part the focus group will be conducted via Zoom and audio-recorded for later analysis. All responses will be kept confidential and no personally identifying information will be collected as part of the research study. You maintain the right to withdraw from the focus-group at any time.

Please read this document which explains the project in further detail- https://opa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PIL-FOCUS-GROUP-PARENTS_v2.pdf

If you wish to be involved in the online focus group, email simon@visfo.health