A LOVING mother from Sandhurst is supporting a cancer charity to develop a test after her son died from pancreatic cancer following a diagnoses on his 26th Birthday.

Anna Stella is backing the Pancreatic Cancer UK's new campaign to help fund the first-ever simple test for pancreatic cancer called Unite-Diagnose-Save-Lives.

Anna’s 26-year-old son Robert went back and fourth to the doctors for five years before he was diagnosed with the terminal cancer on his 26th Birthday.

Ms Stella is now urging the public to support the charity’s campaign to help doctors diagnose and save lives.

Anna was distraught when she was told that the cancer had been detected too late for the doctors to save her son.

She said: “To get up every morning and live without this beautiful boy, who had so much potential, is such a challenge and I would not wish this on anyone.

“Action is what we need. So early diagnosis, some sort of test needs to be done as soon as possible.”

Anna believes her son was always a loving young man but was always tired.

She added: “No one could find out what caused it. He lost a lot of weight and had a lot of back pain. He would go to the GP on a regular basis, at least once a month.

“There were no tests, nothing to diagnose anything, and they just thought it was anxiety and stress.

“He called me one day from work and he said, I'm feeling very, very unwell. ‘Can you take me to the hospital?’ That was when we found out about Robert having pancreatic cancer.”

New polling by ComRes gathered on behalf of the charity revealed that just 11 per cent of GP'S say they have the tools they need to detect pancreatic cancer

Diana Jupp, CEO of Pancreatic Cancer UK, said: “Previous approaches to research funding have been too small, too infrequent and too isolated to speed up the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

“So we’ve united the brightest scientists from across the country to make the progress that’s been so badly needed for decades.

“We are delighted to be making our largest ever investment in early diagnosis research, but it’s an enormous challenge.”

The charity hopes the new test will be developed by 2024. For more information about the charity, visit: https://www.pancreaticcancer.org.uk.