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Pioneering MRI scans helped me beat cancer ... and have twins
Anna Davis, Education Correspondent3 Aug 2009
A woman gave birth to healthy twin girls after undergoing cancer treatment while she was pregnant.
Michelle Stepney found out she had cervical cancer when she was 19 weeks pregnant with Alice and Harriet.
Doctors were able to save her daughters by using a state of the art MRI scanner to work out how far the cancer had spread. This allowed them to delay surgery until after the twins were born.
The technique is being developed so more patients can benefit from it at a cancer imaging centre built for the NHS in London.
Mrs Stepney, 37, helped open the £13million centre in Sutton, which contains the most powerful MRI scanner in the capital. It will be able to catch tiny early-stage tumours and allow treatment to be targeted more accurately.
"Alice and Harriet are two and a half years old and strong and healthy and I can't say thank you enough to the people who looked after me," she said.
Mrs Stepney, who also has a six-year-old son, Jack, was diagnosed in 2006 and was treated at the Royal Marsden under the care of Nandita deSouza, from the Institute of Cancer Research.
She was given six courses of chemotherapy while pregnant to stop the cancer spreading, but at a lower than normal dose. She had regular MRI scans to check whether her tumour had grown. The tests actually revealed it shrunk slightly during her pregnancy.
Chemotherapy can cause babies to be born deaf, but her twins, who were delivered by Caesarean section at 33 weeks, have not been affected.
Four weeks after the birth she had a hysterectomy and in February 2007 was given the all clear.
Mrs Stepney, an accountant who lives with husband Scott in Cheam, said: "My life was turned upside down in an instant. I couldn't think about the cancer, I was more concerned about what would happen with the twins.
"When I found out I could have treatment and continue my pregnancy it was a huge relief. I had to think about Jack too, so my balance was to find something that would let me have the babies but also let me be there for him as well.
"I'm not sad that I had cancer. I've been very privileged to have three children and, thanks to the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden hospital, be cured hopefully forever."
The cancer imaging centre, which is run by the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, has just been officially opened.
Professor deSouza, co-director of the centre, said: "The scanner will allow us to get a better picture of the shape as well as the behaviour of tumours. I am greatly excited about its potential."
