Great-grandmother with 'inoperable tumour' gets UK-first cancer treatment
A great-grandmother who was told she had inoperable cancer has become the first person in the UK to receive a new kind of treatment.
Ninety-two-year-old Brenda Iveson, from North Yorkshire, was diagnosed with cancer in 2025 after medics found a six-centimetre tumour in her liver.
She and her family were told that conventional treatments, like surgery and chemotherapy, would not work on the tumour due to its location and her frailty.
However, Professor Tze Min Wah, research and innovation lead for the interventional oncology programme at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, saw Brenda’s case and thought she could be a good fit for a new kind of minimally invasive procedure.
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Brenda was given a robotic-guided electrochemotherapy – a treatment that combines a small dose of chemotherapy with targeted electrical pulses.
Surgeons used robotic needle guidance to precisely place needles around the tumour to help target the treatment in a pioneering move that has never been performed in the UK before.
Since having the treatment, Brenda’s tumour has shrunk by around 80% and she’s feeling ‘very well’.
“I had been told there was nothing that could be done,” she told the Press Association.
“So to be offered this treatment gave me real hope.
“I’m so glad I went ahead — it wasn’t painful or debilitating, and I feel very well.”
Professor Wah said: “This treatment allowed us to offer an option where there would otherwise have been none.
“The addition of robotic guidance improves precision and opens up new possibilities, particularly for patients with tumours in difficult locations or who are not suitable for other treatments.”
“Introducing robotic guidance really helped with this particular case, the needles provided more accurate placement and made the treatment times shorter – she is the UK first for the robotic guidance to insert the electrode chemotherapy needles into the tumour for treatment.
“She is doing well and she is very grateful that she has had this treatment because otherwise she did not have any other options.”
Scans have shown that Brenda’s tumour is in a stable condition, and she is currently being monitored by the team at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
“We are all happy that something could be done that might prolong my life and which was not painful or debilitating in any way,” Brenda added.
“It seems to be a very effective treatment and particularly useful in older patients who are frail.”
Claire Reid