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Vicky Phelan hails 'wonder drug' as she starts medical trial in the US

Vicky Phelan hails 'wonder drug' as she starts medical trial in the US

Digital Desk Staff

Vicky Phelan has said that she has “finally got the wonder drug” in her US medical trial.

The campaigner travelled to Maryland last month to take part in a clinical trial and she will be there for the first six months of the year.

As the Irish Examiner reports, she has been updating people on her journey through social media and last night she tweeted to say: “I finally got the wonder drug, M7824 (it's Pembro 2.0).

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“Here's hoping that this drug does for me what Pembro has achieved - a quality of life that has allowed me to really live my life and make memories.”

Pembro was the drug Ms Phelan had been previously taking but it has since stopped working for her.

Appearing via a video call on The Late Late Show in January, Ms Phelan said that a scan had shown that things had deteriorated since her last scan in September.

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Ms Phelan said: “I’ve had a scan since I got here and the scan showed that things had deteriorated since my last scan at home in September.

“In addition to these three tumours that I already have that had grown, they’ve now doubled in size.

“And I’ve got two new tumours up here in my shoulder blade in my super clavicular…they’re called lymph nodes.”

Ms Phelan said she is glad she made the move to the US “because things are starting to kind of deteriorate and they will deteriorate further”.

She stated that despite being worried about the side effects of the new treatment, she was also “anxious to get started, to try and start attacking these tumours that are now growing.

“I’ve got 11 tumours which is quite a lot when you think of that.” She said that she wondered how she had 11 tumours and was still able to stay standing.

She said there are three drugs in the trial, compared to one previously.

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