The Korea Herald

피터빈트

Three-year-old girl beats breast cancer

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Published : Jan. 11, 2011 - 10:18

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(captured from Daily Mail) (captured from Daily Mail)
The youngest person ever to be diagnosed with breast cancer has made a full recovery at the age of three, reported the Daily Mail on Sunday.

When Melanie Hunter found a little lump on her daughter Aleisha’s chest, she thought it was a harmless cyst.

“It was a tiny little hard lump, the size of a pea,” Melanie told the Daily Mail.

After hospital tests, Melanie was told it was nothing serious and Aleisha was sent home, but the lump carried on growing.

After the lump had grown to 2 cm and was causing Aleisha such pain she was unable to sleep, Melanie took her daughter back to the hospital.

“I couldn’t believe it when they told me what it was,” Melanie said. “I was unbelievably shocked -- stunned. I didn’t think a child that young could get breast cancer.”

Aleisha, from Toronto, Canada, underwent a mastectomy and had 16 lymph nodes removed from her armpit to see if the cancer had spread after the doctors discovered the cause of the lump in December 2008, when she was two.

Luckily, the cancer had not spread which meant Aleisha did not need chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

“I know I had cancer in my booby and that the doctors made it better,” Aleisha said. “I know that cancer can make some people go to heaven, but I am better now,” she told the Daily Mail.

According to the Daily Mail, surgeon Nancy Down said, “I’ve been dealing with breast cancer cases for 25 years and have never come across a patient this young. She is the youngest known case in the world.”

Doctors have said the cancer is unlikely to return, but Aeisha will need regular check-ups for the next few years and reconstructive breast surgery when she is a teenager.

The previous youngest known breast cancer patient is Hannah Powell-Auslam from California, who was 10 years old when she was diagnosed in 2008.

By Moon Ye-bin (yebinm@heraldcorp.com)
Intern reporter

Edited by John Power


<한글 요약>

3살밖에 안 된 캐나다 토론토주의 여아가 유방암으로 진단 받아 충격을 던져주고 있다.

지난 9일 영국 일간 데일리 메일은 알리샤 헌터가 유방절제술 이후 완쾌 되었다고 보도했다.

알리샤가 유방암 진단을 받은 것은 샤워 후, 젖은 딸 아이를 말리는 도중 가슴 근처에 멍울이 잡혀서 이다. 첫 병원 방문에는 별 이상 없다는 진단서를 받았지만, 점점 더 커져가고 있는 멍물 때문에 다시 병원을 찾은 모친은 충격 적인 소식을 들었다. 성인 여성들에게 생기는 질병으로 알려져 있는, 유방암이라고는 꿈에도 생각하지 못했던 것이다.

다행이게도, 엘리샤는 현재 건강한 모습을 다시 되찾았다고 데일리 메일이 보도했다.