How a Chance Reading of a Newspaper Article Saved My Life - Martin Lovell

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HANNAH LIPPITT: Hello, and welcome to the Totally Clinical podcast brought to you by Teckro.

Totally Clinical is a deep dive into the freshest trends, big time challenges, and most excellent triumphs of clinical trials.

I'm Hannah, your host. Join me as I chat with industry experts, trailblazers, thought leaders, and most importantly, the people benefiting from clinical research.

So tune in, settle back, and don't touch that dial. It's time to get Totally Clinical.

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Today I'm joined by a very special guest, Martin Lovell. Martin was diagnosed with prostate cancer seven years ago. But it was only after a chance reading of an article in the media that he was prompted to follow up on ongoing symptoms he linked to the disease.

This shows the power of awareness-raising when it comes to cancer symptoms, many of which can be hidden and difficult to pinpoint, and Martin is here to tell us the full story. Welcome, Martin. Could you start by talking the listeners through your experience?

MARTIN LOVELL: Well, I'm a 69-year-old man now, and I was 62 when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I work for a multinational company. And I was very fortunate to enjoy private company medical insurance, which enabled me to have a full medical every two years. And I do understand that it is not available to everyone.

But part of the medical report I received would be the blood test result for a PSA, which is the prostate Protein-specific Antigen.

My PSA started rising very slowly in 2009, when it was recorded at 1.10,

and accelerated through 2013 from 2.71

to a higher 3.7 in April 2014.

HANNAH LIPPITT: So that must have been quite a shock.

MARTIN LOVELL: These are not particularly high readings, but they showed an upward trend.

They were classed within normal range for a man of my age.

But I experienced other worrying symptoms, such as I had a poor urine flow, and getting up in the night to urinate frequently.

And one of the most worrying symptoms is I also experienced not being able to urinate. Even though I knew my bladder was full, I couldn't--

just couldn't release. I just--

I couldn't go.

So anyway, this prompted me to go to the GP in August of 2014, and I had a DRE, which is a physical examination of the prostate gland. And he advised me to have another blood test in three months, but no real specific action.

HANNAH LIPPITT: So what happened next?

MARTIN LOVELL: By chance, I read an article by an eminent prostate cancer specialist, a guy called Professor Roger Kirby. And the article was called, "Why Men Over 50 Must Demand a Prostate Test."

Professor Kirby completely mirrored my situation, inasmuch he was the same age as me and had remarkably similar PSA readings. And he, in fact, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer himself, and had his prostate removed by his own surgical team.

HANNAH LIPPITT: That is unbelievable timing. What did you do next?

MARTIN LOVELL: I immediately booked to see him at the prostate center in Wimpole Street, West 1. During an initial consultation with Professor Kirby, I had another DRE examination, which confirmed I had some hardening of the prostate gland. So I was then sent for an MRI and then a biopsy.

HANNAH LIPPITT: And so then you went to have further tests, I imagine.

MARTIN LOVELL: The reason that we had the MRI first, because it's much like a scattergun approach with the biopsy. The MRI would probably show a degree of shadowing, and it shows the surgeon where to take the biopsy from, rather than just going in haphazardly trying to take a sample, and you may be missing the cancer cells.

HANNAH LIPPITT: And what were the results?

MARTIN LOVELL: The MRA and the biopsy confirmed that I, in fact, had prostate cancer as a Gleason 7 T3a, which won't mean a lot to anybody who doesn't understand it. But the disease was classed as aggressive.

And this is despite me having a relatively low PSA reading. So PSA is not the be-all and end-all of indication whether you've got the disease, but it's a first stop.

HANNAH LIPPITT: That news must have been a huge shock for you.

MARTIN LOVELL: Both myself and my wife were very shocked to hear this diagnosis. We were shown into a separate room, and we were shown a video of what happens next and the few options open to me going forward.

Quite frankly, I don't recall too much about the content in the video. I was in a state of shock. And both my wife and I were a bit tearful and distressed. As someone who's quite sporty and thick, I'd gone from feeling invincible to someone who felt suddenly very vulnerable.

HANNAH LIPPITT: Yeah. I mean, that's completely understandable. It must have been very difficult.

MARTIN LOVELL: After I got over the initial shock, I was then informed of the options open to me. Number one, I could have a radical prostatectomy--

the removal of the prostate gland. Or number two, a course of radiotherapy and hormone treatment.

There are other treatments, but my Gleason reading was too high to be able to consider them. After careful consideration--

I discussed it with my son, who's also a medical consultant, a professor, a different field of medicine--

I decided to have the radical prostatectomy and remove the prostate.

I just felt that I had an alien entity inside my body. I just wanted to get it out. So I decided to go down that route.

HANNAH LIPPITT: And there's a very interesting twist to the story here, isn't there?

MARTIN LOVELL: Well, after a month following a diagnosis, I went to Princess Grace Hospital in London and had my prostate removed by Professor Kirby, by the Da Vinci robot. Professor Kirby came to see me after my operation and said I'd made the right decision, as my cancer was extremely aggressive. And it was quite a humbling thought when he said to me he doubted if I'd got five years. So I made the right decision.

HANNAH LIPPITT: Could you tell the listeners a bit about your recovery?

MARTIN LOVELL: I can, Hannah. I'll be honest with you, it was tough.

Recovery is hard, physically and emotionally. You have to really work at it. A supportive partner or wife really does help, but it is hard.

HANNAH LIPPITT: So awareness is really key, and it's very fortunate that you read the article by Professor Kirby when you did. How do you help to raise awareness among men you may know?

MARTIN LOVELL: It's a simple message. Men, to a certain extent, certainly with prostate cancer, have to do this themselves because there's no national screening process for prostate cancer for men. Unlike women, who have a screening program for breast cancer, men have to do it themselves.

I'm kind of hoping that in the future we'll come up with a test that's more accurate than the PSA test. But as it stands at the moment, PSA is all we've got. And the PSA is an indicator whether you should take further tests to check out whether you've got a prostate cancer.

And you don't need to have a high PSA reading to have prostate cancer. It's all about the movement from your last test to your next test to your next test.

As I said earlier, the highest my PSA ever was 4.7, and that's relatively low, certainly for a man of my age.

But compared and coupled with the symptoms that I described earlier, I kind of knew that there was something not right. But having said that, I still wouldn't have gone ahead and had it checked unless I'd read that article.

HANNAH LIPPITT: So this really is a reminder to anyone who feels they have symptoms, get them checked out, and to get a second opinion. Now, after your experience, you've become rather a champion for men's health. This Men's Health Week, what message do you have for men in general?

MARTIN LOVELL: I tell everybody--

I'm a member of a local golf club, and I tell everybody that when you're age 50, you should have a PSA check. And when you ring in for the result, you don't listen to the words, yeah, fine, it's normal for a man of your age.

Ask for the score. Write it down. Have a test within the next two years. Write the score down again. And you've got to look for the pattern, if it's moving. Society needs to come up with a better test for the PSA, but at the moment that's all we've got. So that's the one that men have got to be conscious about, and they've got to take charge of this themselves.

HANNAH LIPPITT: As a cancer survivor, do you have any advice for people who are currently undergoing treatments?

MARTIN LOVELL: It's not a bad idea to get yourself a cancer buddy.

The hospital would normally--

or they certainly did with me, they will give you somebody that's been through the same experience you've been through. And nothing helps more to talk to somebody that's been through the experience. And you can tell them what your concerns is, and how your speed of recovery is compared to how theirs were. So you've got something to monitor against how you're recuperating.

And also, I would say that when you have recovered, and you get to the position where hopefully you're like I am now, seven years post-op, you might even think about becoming a cancer buddy yourself, so you can get people to ring you and say, oh my God. I've had this devastating news. I've got prostate cancer. I've decided to have this done.

And then I say, well, OK. It's not the end of your life. It's the start of the next phase. You've got to learn to live with it. There are several things you can do. One of the famous sayings that comes from the prostate center, funnily enough, is there's so many things you can do to deal with prostate cancer, but doing nothing isn't one of them. You have to do something.

HANNAH LIPPITT: So what's next for you now the operation has happened?

MARTIN LOVELL: You know, I'm seven years post-op.

Life's normal. Everything's normal. Everything's back to normal. I'm quite humbled by the fact that I have two people that have directly told me that I've saved their lives by nagging them to get their PSA done.

And I make no apology for doing that. And I'll do it through this podcast. If you're 50 years older, you should have a prostate check and a PSA check every two years, especially if there's any PSA or prostate history in your family of prostate cancer.

HANNAH LIPPITT: Thank you, Martin, for being a champion of men's health and sharing your incredible story to help other men take action and go for regular check-ups. And that's your dose of Totally Clinical.

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