One million people die of liver cancer each year - and that figure is increasing. But thanks to an innovative technique using microwaves created by David Lloyd – a consultant surgeon and senior lecturer at the University of Leicester – there’s hope in sight, even for patients whose tumours were previously regarded as inoperable.

Indeed, when 100 people whose life prognosis was less than twelve months were treated, more than a third were still alive three years later – with some even pronounced cured and discharged.

Mr Lloyd originally developed the treatment with scientists from the University of Bath who were researching the use of microwaves for the treatment of heavy periods. But a sustained period of collaborative research that began in the late 1990s proved the technique could not only also destroy cancers, but could do so more quickly and with fewer side effects than existing treatments.

Clinical work still continues today in the University of Leicester’s Department of Cancer and Molecular Medicine, where Mr Lloyd is recruiting his fifth PhD student to the project. The microwave generator is being used as far afield as Hong Kong, Singapore, the USA and Australia, and Mr Lloyd believes every major UK liver centre will have one within a couple of years. It’s an impressive example of the huge impact our research can make – not just in the world of science, but on patients’ everyday lives.

• Department of Cancer and Molecular Medicine

Next story >>