Toddler beats breast cancer
Three-year-old girl in China set to make full recovery after surgery
BEIJING: A three-year-old girl from east China’s Shandong province has become the youngest breast cancer survivor after undergoing treatment at a hospital in Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu province.
In March, the mother of the girl Yanyan noticed some red and sticky stains on her singlet and in the following days, the stains frequently appeared on the girl’s clothes.
The mother became more scared when she found there was something on the girl’s left chest, and the lump was soft and could move slightly. The mother took the girl to hospital for examinations.
Doctors at some hospitals told the mother that the girl could be maturing early and asked her not to add too much dietary supplements for the toddler.
However, the mother knew that she hardly did so and decided to take her to other hospitals, and finally they went to Jiangsu Provincial People’s Hospital where doctors diagnosed her with the disease.
Doctors detected the lump in Yanyan’s left breast and a swollen lymph node in her armpit.
A biopsy confirmed that the lump was a kind of breast cancer that is commonly associated with adult women.
Yanyan had secretory breast carcinoma, a rare and slow-growing type of cancer, according to doctors, and she was the third and youngest patient of the disease in about half a century.
The doctors at the Jiangsu hospital contacted the experts at Harvard Medical School and held video conferences to diagnose and discuss the treatment plans.
Considering the surgery effects on the girl as she grows up, the team finally adopted a plan to remove the lump while preserving the mammary glands.
Breast cancer specialist Tang Jinhai at the Jiangsu hospital carried out the surgery.
After removing the infected tissues from the breast, doctors also took the lymph node for a biopsy.
The biopsy showed negative, which meant that the cancer had not extended to other places.
Yanyan, who left the hospital on Monday, is set to make a full recovery.