I was hit with terminal prostate cancer at 48 and told I had months to live - but thanks to new 'triple attack' therapy I'm cancer free...more men should get it

A father diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer is now disease-free after receiving a pioneering new treatment.Kevin Mortimer has been described as a 'super responder' to triplet therapy – a method that attacks the cancer with three treatments at once.The father-of-one, from Liverpool, was left devastated after being told he had advanced prostate cancer three years ago, aged just 48.The disease had spread to his bones and lungs – known as metastatic, or stage four, cancer – and he was told he would not survive. Heartbreakingly, the news came on his daughter's 11th birthday. He told her the next day.'Sitting with my daughter and the toy elephant she's had since she was a baby, to tell her that I had terminal cancer was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do,' Mr Mortimer said.But thanks to remarkable advances in treatment, Mr Mortimer, who works as a medicine consultant, has since celebrated two more of her birthdays – and recent scans have shown the cancer is now 'undetectable'. Approved since 2022, the groundbreaking therapy targeted Mr Mortimer's disease by combining chemotherapy and hormone therapy with the drug darolutamide. Kevin Mortimer has been described as a 'super responder' to triplet therapy, a method that attacks the cancer with three treatments at onceChemotherapy is a common cancer treatment – given by injection, drip, tablets or capsules – that uses drugs to kill cancer cells, while hormone therapy uses medication to lower levels of testosterone and other male hormones in the body.Darolutamide, meanwhile, blocks testosterone from reaching prostate cancer cells, which feed off the hormone in order to grow and spread.When first approved on the NHS, the combination was expected to extend patients' lives by about four years.But Mr Mortimer has been described as a 'super-responder' – because the cancer appears to have fully left his body.'I'm living proof of how far treatments for prostate cancer have come in the past few years thanks to investment, innovation and cutting-edge science,' he said.Incredibly, researchers believe that future patients may be spared chemotherapy altogether because darolutamide could be doing most of the heavy lifting.'It's uncertain whether the chemo adds anything at all,' Professor Gert Attard, a cancer researcher at University College London, told the Mail previously.'We're now running trials looking at the effect of giving darolutamide to advanced patients without chemo.'When I started treating prostate cancer patients 20 years ago, the average survival was two years. Now 40 per cent of patients who go on darolutamide are alive and healthy 12 years on.'Mr Mortimer's results have made him even more determined to support prostate cancer research, he says, because sadly not all men will survive. 'I look forward to a time when living beyond three years with advanced prostate cancer is no longer something remarkable, but something every man with this diagnosis can reasonably expect,' he said.Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Britain, having overtaken breast cancer. There are around 63,000 new cases and 12,000 deaths every year – equivalent to one death every 45 minutes. The Daily Mail is campaigning to end needless prostate cancer deaths and for a national screening programme – initially targeting those at highest risk, including black men and those with a family history of the disease or specific genetic mutations. Mr Mortimer is not the only patient to have defied expectations battling the disease in recent years.Super-fit runner Kevin Webber was told he had around just two years to live after being diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in 2014.He said it felt like his 'world fell apart'. 'But after my diagnosis I went out for a run, which was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and that changed my life,' he said. More than a decade later, the now 61-year-old is competing in ultra-marathons and has raised more than £1million for the charity Prostate Cancer UK.Remarkably, he has completed a string of extreme challenges, including the Marathon des Sables – a 155-mile race across the Sahara Desert in Morocco – five times. 'I'm so proud to have helped raise money to fund groundbreaking research over the past decade, and to know it's helping other men like me live longer lives despite an advanced prostate cancer diagnosis,' Mr Webber said.'I want this disease to be one that men, including my own sons, no longer fear.'