Caroline Ainslie, a 60-year-old retired nurse from Southampton, has been declared cancer-free after undergoing pioneering surgery at University Hospital Southampton, the same hospital where she previously worked as head of nursing. She had been given a terminal, stage four ovarian cancer diagnosis in March 2026 and told she had around a year to live, but responded unexpectedly well to chemotherapy, making her eligible for a complex operation that surgeons had initially thought impossible.

The treatment, known as hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC), involves surgically removing tumours before delivering heated chemotherapy directly into the body. During a 12-hour operation, surgeons removed all visible cancer, including a full hysterectomy and tumours from her abdomen, liver, diaphragm, lungs, lymph nodes and colon. UHS, which introduced HIPEC for ovarian cancer in 2022, recently completed its 50th such procedure, making it one of the most experienced centres for the treatment in the UK; ovarian cancer affects around 7,500 women annually in the UK and causes over 4,000 deaths a year.