A woman whose life was saved by a trial cancer treatment is backing new research which could help other sufferers around the world.

Amy Dickenson was just eight years old when she developed advanced bone cancer in her left leg.

Surgery and chemotherapy did not work and the tumours spread to her lungs.

She was not expected to survive but her parents agreed for her to be treated with a new cancer vaccine being trialled at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London.

The treatment was successful and Ms Dickenson, now 20, is fit and well with one young son and another baby on the way.

Researchers are now studying a newer form of the original vaccine which they hope will provide a cure for patients with malignant melanoma, the most aggressive form of skin cancer.

There is currently no cure for the condition.

The vaccine works by stimulating the specific immune cells which target a particular cancer.

Ms Dickenson's mother Tina, 42, who lives in Horsham, says the trial treatment her daughter received had saved her life.

The new version of the trial vaccine, which contains DNA and fragments of tumour, will be trialled at hospitals in Manchester, Nottingham and Newcastle.

If successful, it could be available within ten years.

Professor Kathy Pritchard Jones from the Royal Marsden, who treated Ms Dickenson and another girl with a similar condition, said: “I believe the vaccine played a vital role in their recovery.

“It is incredibly promising that patients with this almost incurable disease have gone on to live normal lives.”