THE story so far… I have terminal cancer and my consultant gave me nine to 15 months to live. I left his office without much to grab on this slide down the tubes to death. He seemed like a character straight out of a James Bond film: Dr No.

The man who called us back to his office the following week had changed his spots to read ‘Dr Yes’. He asked casually if I would be interested in going on a drug trial to help discover a new treatment for my kind of leukaemia. I would be part of an experiment with 110 people.

Hmmph – I thought – 110 people in Oxfordshire sounds like a small and maybe insignificant trial.

My hopes were still sliding down a hole when Dr Yes explained it was a worldwide trial and the 110 people came from across the globe. Only two others were from Oxfordshire.

There were lots of barriers stopping anyone from joining the trial. First we had to confirm the lists were still open and they were prepared to take new participants. Next I needed to pass the physical entry tests like heart, liver and lung condition. Third, I must meet the drug company criteria for this specific illness.

Finally, even if I managed to hop through all these hoops, I may not get the new, exciting drug treatment because only half of the people accepted for the trial get it. There is no mystery. All participants know who is on the experimental drug and who is not.

During one cliffhanger of a week I took all the tests and found out I passed them all. Eventually official-looking emails came from Switzerland and the United States confirming I was to get the new drug. The other two participants in the Oxfordshire area, who had been on the trial for six months, did not get the new drug.

Just 23 hours later the Trials Nurse received notification that the particular window of opportunity offered by this trial drug had been slammed shut. The lists were officially closed.

I must have been one of the last of ‘the lucky gang’. I felt like Gary Cooper in High Noon, the gunslinging sheriff in a duel to the death, where the other guy pulled the trigger first but the bullet ricocheted off the badge on my chest and saved my life, maybe. Up yours, death…at least for the time being. But I knew this duel was far from over.

What exactly was I getting with this ‘trial’? I am getting two drugs for one week and then nothing for three weeks. This treatment process is repeated for four months.

The two drugs include the leading licensed drug currently fighting many forms of leukaemia. This kind of drug had not improved much in the last 30 years This leading drug is not specifically targeted at leukaemia but hits every cell in the body and poisons them. But some leukaemia patients respond positively to this treatment.

I asked my consultant if this sounded like a medieval punishment that people would not even administer to Jesus Christ. He remained silent.

This ‘top-of-the-range drug’ did not appear to be an answer to the disease. Hence the search and trial for a new drug that would specifically target the cancer cells, put a protein marker on the outside of those cancer cells so the usual drug of the past 30 years would be attracted to zap the cancer cells.

This sounds logical and a major advance to kill the cancer cells but when I look at my quiet, calm, deceptively tranquil arms and hands I know, in the veins I can see just beneath the skin, a major battle of my survival is playing out and a kind of war is going on.

A trial is a gamble. We don’t know how this will turn out. It may be a miracle treatment for many cancers or it may fizzle out as a major hope lost.

The physical results probably won’t be in evidence for some time, but the economic effects are already clear. The new drug costs around £85,000 per year per patient. Currently the drug companies absorb this cost, but if the drug works and is licensed in the UK, will the NHS be allowed to purchase it by the financial and clinical watchdog agency – NICE – the National Institute for Clinical Excellence? In other words, will the drug be worth the cost? One of the reasons to write this column is that we usually hear very little about the ’trial’ process of a new drug. We hear only a brief sentence or two to summarize the results published in medical journals. But we don’t hear the real, rollercoaster ride taken by patients on the trials.

Too often there is a disconnect between the triumphant results and the reality of the foot soldiers in the front line.

And what about my cancer consultant, Dr No? The Trial Nurse told me that when she confirmed to him I was selected for the trial, he punched the air and said “Yes, yes, yes”.

* If you want to contact Bill send an email to news@oxfordmail.co.uk