Elena Adams was excitedly saving for her wedding and enjoying long hikes at weekends when, aged 25, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour and her world collapsed.
asserted
world → save → tumour
A decade on, she’s too ill to hold down a job, on antidepressants and using crutches to walk.
asserted
she → ’ → crutches
Most devastatingly, she’s infertile, the two children she and her husband Gareth longed for a pipedream now.
asserted
she → ’ → pipedream
‘I’m not the same person I was ten years ago,’ she says.
asserted
she → ’m → ?
But it wasn’t the tumour that tore her life apart.
asserted
that → tear → life
It was the treatment she was given.
asserted
she → give → ?
Within days of being diagnosed at University Hospital Coventry in May 2016, Elena’s neuro-oncologist, Professor Ian Brown, put her on a chemotherapy drug called temozolomide (TMZ).
uncertain
oncologist → diagnose → drug
That drug both robbed her of her fertility before she had a chance to preserve it and, combined with the steroids Elena was given to reduce swelling around her tumour, floored her.
‘I would alternate between lying in bed and being sick.
asserted
I → rob → bed
I couldn’t leave the house,’ she says.
asserted
she → leave → house
So it was clearly a blow when Brown and his assistant, Clinical Nurse Specialist Ian Edwards, told her she’d need to stay on TMZ for ever – despite the fact (as Elena later found out) that NHS guidelines stipulate the drug should be taken for six months only.
asserted
drug → tell → months
Elena Adams' life was torn apart by the chemotherapy treatment she was given for years
At the time her issues began, she was saving for her wedding and dreamed of having two kids
Its myriad side-effects include fever, fatigue, nausea, stomach pain and hair loss.
asserted
effects → tear → fever
Yet Elena dutifully accepted her fate, telling herself the chronic side-effects were a small price to pay for her life.
asserted
effects → accept → life
And so she took TMZ for six years – until, in 2022, Brown and Edwards changed tack and told her the cancer had been effectively treated and she could stop chemotherapy.
uncertain
she → take → chemotherapy
Even then, she was so in thrall to her doctors she was simply grateful they had finally cured her.
asserted
they → cure → her
It was only last year that the devastating truth dawned: Elena’s body had been pumped with potent chemotherapy for five and a half years longer than recommended – and the men she credited with saving her life could well be responsible for ruining it.
uncertain
she → dawn → it
Astonishingly, she’s far from alone.
asserted
she → ’ → ?
Forty patients are taking legal action against University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust (UHCW), claiming they were prescribed TMZ to treat brain tumours under Professor Brown for far longer than necessary – if it was even necessary at all.
asserted
it → take → Brown
Last month, it emerged one of Brown’s patients, who spent 11 years on TMZ, didn’t even have cancer in the first place.
asserted
who → emerge → place
Becky Jones, 34, was diagnosed with a terminal tumour by Brown in 2012, when actually she had an inflammation of the brain.
asserted
she → diagnose → brain
‘I was told if I didn’t keep taking the chemotherapy I would die,’ said Becky, a CCTV operator from Coventry, who said her 156 cycles of chemotherapy left her suffering nausea, fatigue, depression and ulcers.
asserted
cycles → tell → nausea
Brown, who had worked for UHCW since 1998, simply dismissed her concerns when she asked why her tumour wasn’t visible in her scans, she said.
asserted
she → work → scans
The scandal is so bizarre, it stretches credulity.
asserted
it → stretch → credulity
It was only when Brown retired in 2023, and other doctors took over his cases, that the extent to which he had prescribed TMZ emerged.
asserted
he → retire → TMZ
A freedom of information request by Brabners, the law firm now representing the patients, found UHCW spent more than £3.6 million on temozolomide (TMZ) between 2009 and 2024 – more than ten times the spending of comparable NHS hospitals.
asserted
UHCW → represent → hospitals
The General Medical Council is now investigating Brown, who is still licensed to practice medicine, albeit with restrictions.
asserted
who → investigate → restrictions
UHCW is ultimately responsible for his patients’ care, and has admitted liability in two cases.
asserted
UHCW → admit → cases
Last month, an interim report by the Royal College of Physicians, carrying out an independent review, identified wider, serious concerns about UHCW’s patient safety, informed consent, clinical decision making and the effectiveness of the systems designed to protect patients.
So how on earth did this happen in the first place?
asserted
this → carry → place
Did Brown and Edwards – who had been most patients’ more regular point of contact at the hospital and retired last year – genuinely believe they were saving their patients’ lives?
asserted
they → retire → lives
Were they somehow profiting from doling out a drug that costs £1,000 per cycle?
asserted
that → profit → cycle
Like everyone whose life has been impacted by the actions of these two men, Elena is demanding answers.
asserted
Elena → impact → answers
‘Because of them, I can’t have children,’ says Elena.
asserted
Elena → have → children
Why would you do it?’
asserted
you → do → it
Elena and husband Gareth eventually married, with her seeing the drug as a small price to pay
Elena following her operation at University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire ten years ago
In addition, being on TMZ for prolonged periods also risks bone marrow suppression, liver damage and secondary blood cancers.
asserted
being → marry → suppression
It was in May 2016, after developing a buzzing in her ear and pressure behind her right eye, that Elena was referred for an MRI scan at University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust.
uncertain
Elena → develop → Trust
Told by a surgeon she had a 6cm tumour in her brain, Elena felt ‘absolute shock’.
asserted
Elena → tell → shock
She had two surgeries to remove the tumour that June and July.
asserted
She → have → tumour
Fiona Tinsley, a partner at Brabners acting for Elena and many other patients, says Brown’s notes show the surgery had been ‘most successful’ with ‘extremely good debulking of the tumour’.
asserted
surgery → act → tumour
Yet when Elena met Brown for the first time after the second operation, he told her she’d need a six-week course of radiotherapy followed by chemotherapy with TMZ to kill off any remaining cancer cells.
asserted
she → meet → cells
She was immediately won over by the then 50-something’s easy bedside manner.
asserted
She → win → manner
‘He would break stuff down and explain it so we would understand it,’ she says.
asserted
she → break → it
…and 81 more, not listed.
The Aporia
