�A Romford businesswoman who underwent years of suffering to beat breast cancer says she is much more confident after surgeons gave her a “bionic boob”.

Gloria Passannante, 63, owner of Philomena Fashion Shop in Rush Green Road, is one of just two people across the country who had the pioneering �50,000 operation last year.

She had been left with long-term complications after extensive radiotherapy.

Glora said: “I have always had a good life but I feel that I have got my body and my confidence back again.”

Gloria, from Brentwood, was forced to have radiotherapy 20 years ago at the former Oldchurch Hospital in Romford when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The treatment was successful in beating cancer but it left her skin burned, chest weakened and a number of ribs fractured.

Gloria said: “I tried to get on with it because I didn’t want people to think that it was all doom and gloom – the most important thing for me was that the cancer was gone.”

The grandmother decided that she had enough when she developed an absess in her chest, which would bleed and left her struggling to climb the stairs and even embarrased to socialise.

In December 2009 she was refered to the Orwell Private Cardiothoracic Unit in Basildon where consultants suggested that she undergo a radical new surgical treatment to reconstruct her chest.

The ten-hour op removed all the affected area of the chest wall including soft tissue, part of six ribs and a segment of the underlying lung. Surgeons then constructed the area with titanium bars and used a flap of skin from Gloria’s belly to reconstruct her breast.

She was back at work eight weeks later.

“The best thing is that I feel clean again and I don’t mind being a guinea pig because it makes me feel special.”