A brand new cancer research project has officially begun in memory of Girls Aloud’s Sarah Harding, with the first woman already taking part.
The new project is named Breast Cancer Risk Assessment in Young Women (BCAN-RAY) and is being funded by the Sarah Harding Cancer Appeal in association with Cancer Research UK.
The project, which is the first of its kind in the world, will involve 750 women, aged 30 to 39, who will undergo tests including a saliva sample to check for gene mutations.
The new Breast Cancer Risk Assessment in Young Women (Bcan-Ray) project will become one of the first in the world to identify which women are at risk of getting the disease in their 30s.
Around 2,300 women aged 39 and under are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK each year.
Sarah sadly passed away in September 2021, and it was later revealed that one of the singer’s last wishes was for there to be another method of identifying early stages of breast cancer, in the hopes of saving lives.
Catherine Craven-Howe, 33, from Hale in south Manchester, is the first person to take part in the new trial.
Sarah’s bandmate Kimberley Walsh had a chat with the first woman taking part in the trail, Catherine, who said she felt “honoured to be involved” in the important trail.
Catherine continued: “Hopefully it will have massive implications and will improve the way we screen younger women.”
She added that she doesn’t have breast cancer herself, nor does she have any family history of it, but she said she is aware of “just how important clinical trials and research are”.
Eight to 10 weeks after her appointment, Catherine will receive feedback about her risk of breast cancer. Then she will undertake a psychological impact questionnaire and receive a breast cancer risk statement at the end of the study, likely to be in 2025.
Singer Kimberly then told Catherine: “I don’t really think thank you is big enough. But I do appreciate you and every single woman that’s agreed to take part in this trial”.
Kimberly hopes that it will lead to something that can be rolled out as she revealed the trails could be “game changing”.
She added: “If she knew that it was actually happening, I think she would be really happy.”
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