Fredrik's Immunotherapy for esophageal cancer.

Hi, I'm Shareen and this fundraiser is for my husband Fredrik.

Fredrik and I were pen friends back in 1994 and we met for the first time in 1998 in Sweden. It was not love at first sight with Fredrik, more like a mutual friendship that grew into love and affection. In Fredrik’s arms, I always feel safe, secure, like how a ship is anchored in a port. But I suppose absence made the heart grow fonder because I migrated to Sweden and we got married in 2000. Five years later our son Noah was born. Noah and Fredrik – lets just say they are each other’s soulmates. Buddies. Best friends forever.

Fredrik was diagnosed with stage IV gastro-oesophageal junction adenocarcinoma (or adenocarcinoma esophageal) cancer May 2020; it has spread to the liver and with metastasis in the lymph nodes. Doctors said it is not curable and will be on palliative care. Not many have been cured from stage four cancer, and the survival rate for this kind of cancer is poor. It has now been almost ten months since Fredrik started chemotherapy. He’s been on two types of chemotherapy. The first one CAPOX was discontinued when Fredrik no longer responded to the treatment. The second line treatment of Cyramza (ramucirumab) and Paclitaxel is usually given with disease progression which was administered from November 2020. I don’t know how long the tumours would respond to this treatment, and I haven’t been advised on a third line of treatment.

There is treatment that works. Immunotherapy is a therapy that boosts your immune system to help it recognize and fight cancer cells. I found out about getting the treatment for Fredrik but was stonewalled with: it is not available for Fredrik’s type of cancer in Sweden! Immunotherapy is available for other cancer types, but it isn’t approved for adenocarcinoma esophageal cancer under the national Swedish cancer programme. All new medicines must be approved by the Swedish New Therapies (NT) Council, a group of experts that supports the Swedish county councils on questions concerning new drug therapies, with the aim of enabling equal drug treatment for patients throughout the country. The medicines are procured only after approval by the NT Council, which takes far too long. Fredrik’s doctors can approve the off-label prescription, but they are bounded by health economics evaluation. We have asked for a second opinion from other hospitals in the country, but all answers are somewhat similar: ‘Strict palliative care’, ‘Assessed as a palliative situation’.

Now, here is the possibility of Fredrik getting cured with immunotherapy but someone somewhere wanted to play God and decide what chances my husband should get. Imagine our feeling of powerlessness, having to leave one's life in another person's hand! There remains great unmet medical need for patients and families coping with an esophageal cancer diagnosis. The biggest irony is, and I quote Angelica Selander: “Sweden awarded with one hand the Nobel Prize in Medicine 2018 for immunotherapy but holds it back with the other hand.”

We don't have the luxury of time to wait for the bureaucracy, to wait for an approval from people in higher places. Time is running out. We are in the midst of getting a second opinion with a private hospital in Sweden and from our discussions, we were told that immunotherapy treatment would cost at least 1 million Swedish kroners. We are not able to raise the money to meet this medical expense and therefore we are reaching out for help to crowdfund Fredrik's immunotherapy expenses. At the end of the day, I’m doing this for Noah for him to have his father as long as possible.

From the bottom of our hearts we would be grateful if you could make any contribution, your generosity is deeply appreciated.