Woman who began planning own funeral now cancer free after UK's first liver transplant for disease
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A young woman has been given a 'second chance of life' after undergoing the UK's first liver transplant for advanced bowel cancer. Bianca Perea, 32, underwent surgery in the hope it could offer a otential cure for her deadly disease. The procedure has been a huge success and she now has no signs of cancer anywhere in her body.
It is the first time a patient with an advanced form of cancer has received a transplant in this way. The operation was carried out when the disease had been successfully treated in her bowel, but spread to the liver. Trainee lawyer Bianca first visited her GP in Wigan, where she lives, after feeling bloated.
She was referred to her local hospital where she had various tests. When medics noted high levels of blood in her stool, she was referred for a colonoscopy and biopsy. She was told stage four bowel cancer, the most advanced kind, had spread to all eight segments of her liver in Nov, 2021.
She recalled: "I didn't have really bad symptoms at all. I was 29 at the time and I was never bloated to the extent I couldn't do up my clothes or my trousers. It was just a little bit uncomfortable. "But every time an ad would come up about cancer, even if it wasn't bowel cancer, it would jump out of the TV at me. It was quite weird, as if I was being told, 'something's not right'.".
During the colonoscopy, a camera on a thin tube was passed through the bowel to examine it in full detail. Bianca, of Manchester, added: "There was a blockage in my bowel and the doctor couldn't get the camera past. He said: 'If you were 60 and above, I would say that is most definitely cancer, but because you're so young, I just can't see how that could be that in you'.
