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Cancer Eight-year-old girl meets early diagnosis of breast cancer
An 8-year-old child diagnosed with breast cancer? What sounds unbelievable has become a bitter reality for a little girl in the US. A few weeks ago, Chrissy Turner from Centerville, Utah, USA, had diagnosed the very rare "secretory carcinoma", FoxNews reports. Thus the girl is the youngest known patient with this special type of cancer.
Breast cancer usually does not affect young girls, but in the US, an eight-year-old is ill. (Image: underdogstudios / fotolia.com)
Girl discovers knots in the chest
The story of little Chrissy Turner from Utah in the US is currently causing great concern and sympathy. Because the eight-year-old girl is considered one of the world's youngest patients with breast cancer, reports the US TV channel "Good4Utah". The illness had been recognized only a few weeks earlier, after the girl herself had discovered a change in her breast. "It was about mid-October when she came to us with a lump in her chest and she was scared," said the child's father, Troy Turner, opposite the transmitter.
This is a very rare form of breast cancer, adds the mother of little Chrissy. "It's called secretory carcinoma and is diagnosed in just one in every one million cases. She is the youngest patient the doctors have ever come across with this particular type of breast cancer. I broke down. It is a daily struggle with the concern for my family, my husband and now also about my little girl, "said Annette Turner.
Mother and father were already suffering from cancer
Because the situation is not new for the Turner. Accordingly, Annette was already suffering from cervical cancer, her husband Troy was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma when Chrissy was still a baby. "She was our therapy when he went through chemotherapy," Annette continues. Accordingly, both Chrissy and her parents would know that they are having a difficult fight ahead of them. "The first time I heard about it, I was scared," said the eight-year-old. "But I knew I could fight it and I hope I fight it."
Collecting friends via Facebook Donations for the treatment
At the beginning of the fight, according to the report, an operation at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah, in which the child is the mammary gland removed (mastectomy). The support and sympathy is great here, but on the campaign "Chrissy's Alliance" on Facebook, the friends of the family could already collect more than 50,000 US dollars (about 47,000 euros) for the treatment. "We are still fighting," said Annette Turner. "We do everything we can to smile and laugh every day, keeping our heads high and doing our best every day to overcome it all."
Cancer usually occurs in women between 15 and 30 years of age
Even from the perspective of local experts, the cancer of the little girl is very unusual. "From the past 35 years, only one case has been known to me from Germany, in which a 15-year-old girl has breast cancer," said Stefan Pfister, Head of Pediatric Neuro-oncology at the German Cancer Research Institute Heidelberg, to the "dpa". However, since both parents were affected by cancer, probably genetic factors are responsible for the development of cancer, added Pfister. Normally, the rare secretory carcinoma would occur in women around the age of 15 to 30, so Chrissy would not fit in the typical grid. Every year, around 2,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed in children under the age of 18, including leukemia and brain tumors among the most common. According to the experts, however, only about ten percent of them are inherited, while the cause remains unknown in the remaining tumors. (No)