Cancer survivor Kerry Sadler, from Haverhill, features on Morning Live on BBC One almost eight years after being given two years to live

A cancer super-survivor who was told in 2017 that she had no more than two years to live is taking part in a study that researchers hope will help them develop lifesaving treatments.

Kerry Sadler was 55 when she was given the stark prognosis after being diagnosed with the highly-aggressive small cell lung cancer, which had led to a secondary tumour on her brain.

The 63-year-old, born and bred in Haverhill but now living with husband Mike in Castle Camps, had surgery to remove the brain tumour and then underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy and has been having three-monthly MRI and CT scans ever since.

Her story is included in a feature about cancer super-survivors that is to be broadcast on the BBC One show, Morning Live on Monday, March 31.

Looking back to 2017, Mike said: “Kerry had chemotherapy and radiotherapy and after a couple of sessions she said to the consultant, you had better level with me, how long have I got and she said weeks or months, over the winter.

“Statistically one year (is likely), very optimistically, it could be two years.”

Kerry, whose maiden name is Mainland and who has four brothers, three of them still in Haverhill, is being treated at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge.

The trust it is part of is one of nine UK oncology institutions taking part in the Rosalind Study, which aims to decode the biological factors behind long-term cancer survival and unlock insights that may pave the way for more effective cancer treatments.

It will focus on three of the most aggressive cancer types - extensive stage small cell lung cancer; brain cancer glioblastoma and metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Researchers intend to gather tumor samples from more than 1,000 consenting patients who are among the top three per cent in terms of cancer survival – known as super-survivors.

The samples will be analysed by the French techbio company heading the study, Cure51, with the aim of discovering novel therapeutic targets on which to base potentially transformative new treatments.

Since the initial prognosis Kerry has had a second golf-ball-sized tumour removed from her brain, had three-quarters of her left lung and a cancerous adrenal gland removed and had 33 radiotherapy sessions on her right lung - and that is just part of her cancer treatment story.

Of Kerry’s appearance on Morning Live with other Rosalind Study super-survivors, Mike said: “It’s going to be a little bit of a way of bringing public awareness of the Rosalind Study and they want it to be an upbeat story. It’s not doom and gloom, it’s people beating cancer.

“She was given, brutally speaking, a year to live and seven-and-a-half years later she is, remarkably, still with us, hence she’s qualified for this study.”

Surviving for so long with terminal cancer has given Kerry the chance to spend more time with their daughter Harriet Thomson and granddaughters Grace, 13 and Millie, nine, who live nearby in Abington.

But of the future, Kerry said: “We don’t really know what’s around the corner, we have to just get on with it, otherwise what else can I do. There’s nothing I can do.

“I’ve got a daughter and two lovely grandchildren and I want to survive for them and my husband, obviously, he’s been amazing.”