'Lifeline' for devoted NHS worker after trying revolutionary blood cancer treatment at Sheffield Hospital

A Sheffield cancer patient has been given the all-clear after undergoing a brand new, revolutionary treatment just months after being told they had exhausted all other conventional options.

49-year-old Abdi Farah, an NHS clinical support worker, received a devastating diagnosis for aggressive lymphoma in December 2022, after he began to experience fever and pain on the left side of his tummy during a holiday.

He put it down to muscle ache, but did visit his GP upon his return home. He said: "I could barely manage the short, two-minute walk from my house to the GP surgery. I didn’t feel normal.”

Investigations ordered by his GP found very abnormal blood results - eventually resulting in the devastating cancer diagnosis. That Christmas, Abdi felt "dreadful".

After 23 years caring for patients in the NHS, Abdi was now on the other end of the equation. In January 2023, he started intensive Chemotherapy and, in April, he had a stem cell transplant, using his own stem cells.

Three weeks later, he was able to return home, but then, in June, Abdi noticed some lumps on his tummy and leg. After exhausting the conventional treatments in the first six months of the year, Abdi's cancer had unfortunately returned, aggressively.

“The scan was bad news," he said, "The cancer had come back. I was told I wouldn’t survive without the CAR T-cell therapy because all other treatments had been exhausted.”

CAR T-cell therapy is a revolutionary blood cancer treatment which reprograms the patient's immune system to attack their cancer. Abdi was only the ninth person in South Yorkshire to receive the treatment, after Sheffield Teaching Hospitals was made a designated CAR T-cell therapy centre in November 2022.

The new treatment was the only licensed option in this scenario that offered a realistic chance to cure him, and without it he had just weeks to live.

On October 9, 2023, just 10 months after his initial diagnosis, Abdi was given the all-clear.

He said: "It seemed like a miracle. I felt over the moon. I had been given a lifeline. I had another chance to live another day. CAR-T has given me hope, and I am so thankful to the team at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital."

Dr Philippa Kelsey, a Consultant Haematologist at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals who looked after Abdi, said: "CAR-T is an innovative, personalised cancer treatment and a big step forward in treatment for patients with specific blood cancers.

"The evidence for CART-T cells in patients like Abdi, who have no other treatment options, shows that between 50-80% of people will respond to this treatment. Life expectancy without treatment can be a matter of months, with treatment this is expected to be at least one year but with the chance of cure in patients who respond well."