'Huge relief' as teen rings cancer-free bell

A teenage cancer patient has been celebrating being cancer free after undergoing treatment for two years.

Dan Evans, 19, from Newark in Nottinghamshire, described his huge relief ringing the "cancer-free bell" at the teenage cancer ward at Nottingham City Hospital.

Mr Evans underwent a successful stem cell transplant in June 2024 after his family said they pushed for access to a combination of cancer drugs on the NHS.

As he rang the bell, he told the BBC: '"It's great...it is a huge relief."

Mr Evans was an active 17-year-old playing football for Newark Town Football Club when he was diagnosed with cancer on Christmas Eve 2022.

His initial flu-like symptoms turned out to be a rare form of advanced blood cancer - stage-four Primary Mediastinal B Cell Lymphoma (PMBCL).

Mr Evans underwent months of intensive chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy at Nottingham City Hospital and CAR T-cell therapy in Birmingham.

Mr Evans described losing his hair during treatment as one of the low points of his journey.

"Hair for a lot of young people is their identity, it is an important thing not to stick out," he said.

"When I was losing it, I just thought I would shave it. I am so glad it has come back."

Mr Evans says around Christmas 2023 he was told by medics to "go home and make memories" after treatment options began to run out.

The family set up a fundraiser page and raised about £50,000 within days after they found a combination of cancer drugs that had proved promising in a clinical trial called Nivolumab and Brentuximab.

Initially only one was approved by the NHS, but eventually the Nottingham City Hospital agreed to pay for the first round on compassionate grounds.

His father Mark Evans, 50, recalls: "It was very stressful getting access to those two drugs.

"We had to do a lot of letter writing. If we hadn't have won, it would have been a different story".

Mum Natalya Evans, 46, says she is so proud of her son.

"We have been to hell and back," she said. "It is any parent's nightmare.

"Today we are over the moon but numb because we have been through so much.

"Watching him ring the cancer-free bell is priceless.

"I always believed he would win, I knew it."

Dan, who is looking to start his geography degree at the University of Lincoln in September, added: "All I can do is thank my family, the people of Newark and the hospital for getting me here, I am so grateful".

Jo Addada, consultant clinical haematologist at Nottingham City Hospital, said: "Dan has had a very difficult cancer journey since his diagnosis of lymphoma, undergoing numerous rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy as well as CAR-T cell therapy and an unrelated donor stem cell transplant.

"He's been very brave and positive throughout many adversities.

"The medical and nursing teams are delighted that he is now in remission and getting back to normal life."

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