Mark Jacobs’ father Keith Jacobs was sadly diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in April of 2017 and after almost 10 months of chemotherapy his family were given the devastating news that the treatments had been ineffective and would be ceased from that point onwards. Mark’s dad has always been a fighter and rather than give up hope he pushed for a referral to apply for the National Lung MATRIX Trial, an ongoing research program looking at a number of new drugs to treat non-small cell lung cancer. He was subsequently invited to the Velindre cancer centre in Cardiff in late January of this year for a consultation and testing process to formalise his application.

Unfortunately, Keith passed before making it through to the trial but his potential placement within the program was all he talked about for the last 6 weeks of his life and gave all the family a glimmer of hope at an otherwise hopeless time. It really was his only ray of light in a difficult period and even right through to the end he never gave up the belief that he would improve enough to make it to the trial.

Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death in England and Wales. Although most cases are associated with smoking, there are a rapidly increasing number of sufferers who like Mark’s father have never smoked in their lives.