Ovacome Summer 2014

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comments contact Ovacome Chief executive: Louise Bayne Support services nurse: Ruth Payne Susan Morgan-Walters Volunteer and information manager: Ruth Grigg Administrator: Sonia Vig Support line: 0845 371 0554 020 7299 6650 Email: support@ovacome.org.uk Administration line: 020 7299 6654 Email: ovacome@ovacome.org.uk Address: Ovacome, B5, City Cloisters, 196 Old Street, London EC1V 9FR Office hours: Monday to Friday 10am – 5pm. Follow Ovacome on Twitter and Facebook for daily news, or visit www.ovacome.org.uk Registered Charity Number 1058026 To register as a member of Ovacome please send your details to the following address or call the telephone number above © 2014 Ovacome B5, City Cloisters, 196 Old Street, London EC1V 9FR. OVACOME is a voluntary organisation and relies on donations The information gathered in this newsletter is from many sources and is provided for guidance only. Ovacome has made every effort to ensure that it is accurate but can make no undertakings as to its accuracy or completeness. All medical information should be used in conjunction with advice from medical professionals Front cover: At the launch of the Survivors Teaching Students programme: the Clark family with Ovacome’s patron, Jenny Agutter. Image taken by Skye Brackpool at Brightontogs. Designed, produced and printed by Berforts Information Press Ltd www.informationpress.com Welcome to Ovacome’s summer newsletter We are entering a new era for cancer treatment, with a staggering 50% of people diagnosed with the disease today likely to be cured. While ovarian cancer is one of the more tricky areas to treat, Dr Richard Osborne, a consultant medical oncologist at Dorset Cancer Centre, told Members’ Day attendees that he wanted to share his “enthusiasm and optimism about progress in ovarian cancer treatment”. It’s largely down to the personalised way that women are now being managed with the introduction of multi-displinary teams working together to come up with tailored treatment plans, rather than a one approach suits all strategy, he said. The amount of options available to treat the disease is increasing with newcomers like Avastin making positive change. And a new armoury of drugs, such as Olaparib (see pages 6 and 7), are lining up to give the next generation of precision medicine. So Cancer Research UK’s ambitious plans to see three-quarters of all cancer patients surviving their disease in the next 20 years could well be within grasp. After all its recent landmark figures show a massive improvement from the early 1970s, when just a quarter of people diagnosed with cancer survived 10 years. It’s true that for many with ovarian cancer their disease is caught too late to be cured. But reassuringly it has become a disease that can be lived with using maintenance medicine, such as hormone therapy, and top up chemotherapy or surgery. This allows women to get on with their lives and to think of ovarian cancer more as a chronic illness such as diabetes. Hopefully this newsletter will help you get into this positive mindset. Happy reading. Juliet Morrison, newsletter editor. Thoughts from the chair Hello. I am absolutely delighted to be writing this comment piece as the new Ovacome chair of trustees. I have been a supporter of the charity since I read Sarah Dickinson’s article in Good Housekeeping in 1996 and have watched it grow (and support the women I was working with) into the amazing organisation that it is today. I want to thank Noëline Young for all her hard work over the past 10 years as chair and only hope that I can at least half fill her shoes - for this would be a job well done! I also want to thank Noëline for her personal support which I hope will continue. I was pleased to meet so many people at the recent Members’ Day. This was a truly inspiring event with great speakers and the opportunity to ask questions and share stories which made the day so much more valuable and enjoyable. There was a real sense of what has already been achieved for women with ovarian cancer and of the way that things will be improved in the future. Thank you again for welcoming me and for giving me the opportunity to use my experience (and time now the children have grown up!) to help steward the organisation to continue to do great things. Cathy Hughes. Ovacome was founded in 1996 by Sarah Dickinson. Trustees to the charity are: Cathy Hughes (chair), Simon Chantrey (treasurer), Sean Kehoe (medical adviser), Clare Barsby, Adrian Dickinson and Noëline Young. 2 Phone Ovacome’s nurse led support line on 0845 371 0554 it together
news Teaching ovarian cancer away from the text book Ovacome’s new Survivors Teaching Students project, which brings the voices of ovarian cancer survivors to medical and other clinical students, was successfully launched in May with a pioneering presentation to our supporters and funders. Presenters Jackie Rose, Samixa Shah and Jenny Hayes spoke movingly about their experiences of diagnosis, treatment and living with ovarian cancer to drive home crucial information that will help to improve outcomes for women. Ovacome patron Jenny Agutter hosted the event and told how learning of the diagnosis of a woman she knew had convinced her to join the charity and support its innovative campaigning to raise awareness. Survivors Teaching Students is supported by the family of Dr Lisa Jayne Clark, a consultant in emergency medicine who died of ovarian cancer aged just 40 in October 2012. She trained at Charing Cross Hospital, which welcomed the Ovacome launch and gave the venue for free. The event began with a film about her life and her family’s support for the project in her memory. Talking it over: Ovacome supporters after presentation. Presenter Samixa Shah says: “It was a great experience, I thoroughly enjoyed being a presenter and although I was nervous about speaking I am so pleased to be able to use what happened to me in a positive way to help other women.” A powerful voice: Jackie Rose, Jenny Hayes, Samixa Shah and Jenny Agutter (back row first, left to right). Now Ovacome is receiving enquiries from medical schools, nursing schools and other education settings from across the UK and the next STS date is firmly booked. Many Ovacome members have volunteered to take part as presenters. “This is an exciting pioneering programme that Ovacome is offering for free as a practical and positive way of communicating with the doctors and nurses of the future,” says Ovacome’s chief executive, Louise Bayne. “The programme has been proved to be an effective way of giving information that is retained by putting real women’s voices and faces to ovarian cancer. It brings the story of ovarian cancer alive for students, rather than Noteworthy talks. relying on a dry text book.” Survivors Teaching Students: Saving Women’s Lives is owned and trademarked by the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance in the US. Would you like to be involved? To find out more email Ruth Grigg at r.grigg@ovacome.org.uk it together Phone Ovacome’s nurse led support line on 0845 371 0554 3
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Page 5 and 6: Around the world support Cancer cha
Page 7 and 8: ask the doctor It’s not over yet,
Page 9 and 10: A day of empowerment Some 40 member
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Page 13 and 14: postbag A safe place Meet Ovacome
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Ovacome Summer 2014

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