‘THE TUMOUR IS STABLE, WHICH IS THE BEST NEWS WE COULD ASK FOR’

At just two years old, Aubrey Line is one of the youngest to benefit from genomics testing.

The toddler was 16 months old when scans revealed a tumour had wrapped itself around the heart and aorta. Doctors were able to carry out whole genomic sequencing in order to find out exactly what sort of cancer it was.

They suspected it was a pleuropulmonary blastoma, a hereditary cancer. But there was a chance it could be rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare cancer affecting muscle cells.

The genetic tests confirmed it was a rhabdomyosarcoma.

This meant Aubrey was able to start taking a maintenance chemotherapy, called cyclophosphamide, at home and needs to attend hospital weekly to have vinorelbine, another chemo drug, injected.

Aubrey’s mum Anna said: ‘We’ve just had a scan that showed the tumour is stable, which is the best news we could hope for.

‘They’ve told us she can’t be cured, so we just have to take each day as it comes and hope there might be a chance to operate.

‘But thanks to sequencing the tumour, we have a much better idea of what we’re dealing with.’