PARIS: When Lucas was six years old and diagnosed with a rare sort of brain cancer, the prognosis was clear.
French doctor Jacques Grill becomes distraught as he recalls having to tell Lucas’s parents that their kid was going to die. However, seven years later, Lucas is 13 years old, and no evidence of the malignancy remains.
According to the researchers that treated him, the Belgian boy is the first kid in the world to be healed of brainstem glioma, an especially deadly cancer.
“Lucas beat all the odds” to survive, said Grill, head of the brain tumor division at Paris’ Gustave Roussy Cancer Center.
Every year, approximately 300 children in the United States and up to 100 in France are diagnosed with the tumor, also known as scattered intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG).
Prior of International Childhood Cancer Day on Thursday, medical professionals praised breakthroughs that have resulted in 85 percent of children living more than five years following being diagnosed with cancer.
However, the future for children with DIPG tumors remains bleak, with the majority dying within a year of diagnosis. According to a recent study, barely 10% were still alive after two years.
Radiotherapy can sometimes delay the aggressive tumor’s rapid progression, but no medicine has been proven to be effective against it.
SOURCE: DAWN NEWS
