A CANCER battler has started a new round of treatment with a newly-approved drug which could offer her a ‘precious lifeline’.

Lisa Roberts, 37, is suffering from breast cancer and also has 12 spinal tumours. She needs the ‘smart drug’ T-DM1 to specifically target the cancer.

The medication is made up of herceptin, which identifies cancerous cells, and chemotherapy which destroys them. Other types of chemotherapy can affect all cells, making patients feel poorly.

Lisa, of Banbury Avenue, Oswaldtwistle, said the drug had only been available in Britain since March and that she was looking forward to seeing if it could work for her.

She said: “All along, this is the drug that I have been wanting to get hold of because I have heard lots of good stories.

“The things this drug is doing for people is amazing. It is prolonging people’s lives and laying some people’s cancer dormant.”

Lisa was diagnosed in January 2013 and has had some treatment. However, this affected her heart and she had to come off it.

She has now been given the all-clear to try T-DM1, which will involve her receiving an infusion once every three weeks, possibly for the rest of her life.

The mother-of-two said she was expecting to have a scan after around three months to see if the drug was working.

Lisa said she had been told there could be fewer side effects than with other chemotherapy treatments.

She said: “Previously, the chemo would have made me lose all of my hair, but this one might not.

“It could make my immunity drop, but a lot of people who have been on it have had hardly any side-effects.

“But because it is new, the doctors are as much in the dark as we are. It is just a case of trying the treatment and seeing whether my body responds to it.

“My oncologist at Burnley General Hospital has been fantastic and I am very optimistic.”