Call for Owain's law to aid tumour treatment

SENEDD members have called for "Owain's law," in memory of a young father, to ensure a gold-standard approach to preserving human tissue for other cancer patients in future.

- CHRIS HAINES

Hefin David led a debate on a cross-party motion calling for a law named after his Caerphilly constituent Owain James, who died last year.

He said: "Owain was only 34 years old when he was diagnosed with a 14cm, malignant, grade-four brain tumour in his right frontal lobe. His neurosurgeon said it was one of the biggest tumours she had ever come across in her professional career.

"It was an absolutely devastating blow to Owain, his wife, Ellie, who is in the public gallery today, and his daughter, Amelia, who at the time was only 18 months old. Until then, Owain had always been a fit and healthy young man."

Dr David said the family turned to private treatment and found a personalised vaccine that used a patient's tumour tissue to educate the immune system to recognise cancerous cells.

He told the Senedd: "The problem here, however, was that Owain needed fresh frozen tumour tissue to develop a sufficient dose of the vaccine. Owain had had 7cm of tissue surgically removed but, unfortunately, only 1cm of this was fresh frozen and could be used."

The Caerphilly Senedd member said Owain only had three doses of vaccine when it should have been more like 30 doses, but he initially made a remarkable recovery.