Juliet De Nittis is a 53-year mother of one from Victoria. In early 2019, Juliet discovered she had a tumour big enough to cover her entire left kidney.
"Initially I wasn’t surprised and I thought to myself it will be alright. What I didn’t know was that it was actually a rare cancer and that it was aggressive. My first thought was that they would just take the kidney out. I also wasn’t aware that it had spread to my lungs.
At this stage I didn’t receive a lot of information as there was a big rush to get me started on the clinical trial.
My biggest fear was as a parent, I wanted to be there for my daughter. Especially when they said if the treatment didn’t work, I would have a year or two. Luckily I have well and truly exceeded my expiry date.
I was placed on the UNISoN trial and given a new immune treatment to see if it helped me. My cancer was a rare kidney cancer (non clear cell cancer). Non-clear-cell kidney cancers occur in about 25% of people with kidney cancer; and because it is rare there are no treatments currently reimbursed in Australia".
Read more about Juliet's story here.
