Teenager with brain tumour given painkillers for ‘long Covid’

A TEENAGER suffering from a brain tumour was misdiagnosed with long Covid, his family have said.

Kane Allcock, 15, had been suffering from persistent headaches after testing positive for coronavirus in December.

But despite being admitted to A&E, doctors mistakenly assumed he had migraines caused by long Covid, according to his mother.

The Office for National Statistics estimates 1.5million people in the UK have long Covid. According to guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, long Covid refers to patients who have experienced symptoms for more than 12 weeks, which cannot be explained by another cause. The teenager, from Crewe, Cheshire, was given codeine and told he was experiencing “post-covid vertigo”. However, he began to suffer more severe headaches, was nauseous and struggled to walk, owing to dizziness.

He suffered a seizure and was readmitted to hospital. An MRI scan revealed he had acute hydrocephalus, a build-up of pressure on the brain caused by excess fluid. The scan also found a large tumour and he underwent a 7.5-hour operation to remove it. The tumour was a low-grade or non-cancerous pilocytic astrocytoma.

Kane’s mother Nicki Allcock, a medical secretary for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, said they took him to a walk-in centre on the Easter bank holiday weekend in Blackpool as he felt too unwell to take part in a football tournament. “They did a full examination and concluded that he may have been suffering from post-covid vertigo and he was given codeine,” she said.

The next day the teenager was still unwell so they took him home and went to A&E. “They did some blood tests and put him on oxygen and IV pain relief,” she said.

Mrs Allcock said they were told he was “just suffering from migraines” but one nurse “seemed to take us more seriously” and admitted Kane.

Once the build-up of fluid on the brain was identified, he underwent emergency surgery in Liverpool.