A YOUNG cancer sufferer will find out next week if a potentially life-saving treatment has been successful.

Carl Watson, 20, believes pioneering drug SGN35 is his final hope in his battle against Hodgkin's lymphoma.

He will undergo the final treatment in a course of four tomorrow, before finding out next week whether the treatment will continue.

Doctors are hoping the drug will shrink the tumour enough to enable him to undergo a bone marrow transplant – his last chance of survival against the cancer he has battled three times.

Carl's mum, Debbie Watson, said: "We are just on tenterhooks at the minute waiting to find out whether they will carry on with it.

"If it is successful, they will continue it until they can do a bone marrow transplant. Without that, he has got no chance.

"If they aren't getting a good enough response so far, they will stop the treatment and say there is nothing more they can do."

Carl, of Grassington Close, Bransholme, was told in July he had just months to live after he was diagnosed with the cancer for the third time in three years.

Doctors estimate there is a one in three chance of SGN35 proving a success.

If the drug shrinks the tumour, a suitable bone marrow donor will still need to be found. Members of Carl's family have been tested, but have not been a match.

His family were initially told they would need to raise £20,000 for SGN35 after courses of chemotherapy and radiotherapy failed to beat the cancer.

However, NHS Hull later said it would fund the initial course, which began in December.

The money the family initially raised will be donated to the Teenage Cancer Trust, which has a unit at Castle Hill Hospital in Cottingham, where Carl is treated.

Debbie said she admired her son for the way he has coped since the third diagnosis.

She said: "Nothing gets him down, he never complains about anything.

"He is dealing with it all really, really well. He doesn't even look ill.

"I know I would say this, because he is my son, but he is just amazing. The way he has reacted to it all has been fantastic.

"Now, he just keeps talking about what he wants to do this year – he wants all the family to go on holiday, he wants to get a new car, he wants a job.

"He is just a young lad, who wants to do normal things."