Woman given ‘second chance at life’ after receiving UK’s first liver transplant for advanced bowel cancer
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Bianca Perea was told prolonging life was the only option when she was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in 2021. A young woman has received a “second chance at life” after undergoing the UK’s first ever liver transplant for advanced bowel cancer.
![[Ms Perea refused to believe there would be no cure to her cancer]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/05/14/newFile-3.jpg)
Bianca Perea refused to accept that prolonging her life was the only option when she was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer – which had spread to her liver. “I don’t want to sound kind of ignorant or arrogant or anything like that, but I just didn’t feel in my gut that that was going to be it,” the 32-year-old trainee lawyer from Manchester said of the moment she heard her poor prognosis.
![[Doctors hope the cancer won’t return following the liver transplant]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/05/14/newFile-4.jpg)
Following the transplant, targeted drug therapy and chemotherapy, Ms Perea now has no remaining signs of cancer in her body. When she first visited her GP in Wigan as a result of constipation and bloating, she was referred to her local hospital, where high levels of blood were discovered in her stool.
Ms Perea was 29 when she was told in November 2021 that she had stage four bowel cancer – the most severe kind – despite the fact she “didn’t have really bad symptoms at all”. After the colonoscopy, a doctor said her prognosis was not good. “He said, ‘We are looking at prolonging your life rather than a cure’. And I just remember everything slowed down,” Ms Perea told PA.
