Oncology specialist to cycle from London to Paris

Dr Tom Roques, consultant oncologist and his colleague Jo Segasby, general manager for cancer services at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH) will be embarking on a 3 day 288 mile cycle ride from London to Paris on Monday 17th September 2012.

This event will form part of a new appeal to raise funds of £600,000 to provide a new brachytherapy suite for patients at the NNUH. This appeal will be officially launched at the Cambridge to Norwich Cycle Ride on Sunday 30th September.

Dr Tom Roques said “The ride will be a real challenge for someone who usually cycles three miles to and from work each day with a few longer rides at weekends, but we wanted to do something momentous to start the fundraising. We’re delighted to be able to kick start the regime, hopefully with the wind behind us. A successful appeal will mean we can offer brachytherapy treatment to patients with prostate cancer and other tumours in state of the art surroundings. Brachytherapy enables precise radiation delivery to the heart of the tumour, reducing damage to surrounding tissues.”

Jo Segasby said “The hardest part of the challenge so far has been organising the ride consisting of a team of eight riders and a support driver, we are just hoping that calculations and the route will all work out and we make it to each hotel along the way. Not easy when most riders complete this in four days and we are planning for three but we all agreed we wanted this to be a real test. We'd also like to thank Barford Hire for supporting us”.

Anyone who would like to make a donation to Tom and Jo's cycle ride can do so at https://www.justgiving.com/brachytherapyappeal

Notes for editors

What is Brachytherapy?
Standard radiotherapy uses radiation directed at the tumour from outside the body so that the radiation travels through normal tissue to get to the tumour. This means that some normal tissue also gets damaged although modern techniques aim to keep this to a minimum.

Brachytherapy is the placement of radioactive sources inside or near a tumour. As the radiation is delivered internally it doesn’t have to pass through so much normal tissue which results in a reduction of the long term side effects. This also means that the daily dose that patients can receive is significantly higher, therefore resulting in a reduced overall treatment schedule for the patient.