Check out the latest news about proton therapy: this week, find out how this state-of-the-art treatment modality is helping people from all horizons and giving them back their life.
DESTINY’S CANCER IN REMISSION
8-year-old Destiny Dye, from the UK, was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma bone cancer last year, which only affects 30 people a year. Today, the youngster is in remission.
After receiving chemotherapy, Destiny underwent an operation in November last year to remove a tumor from her head, described as incredibly rare. Then her family learned that she needed specialist proton beam therapy, not yet available in the UK. After spending two months receiving her treatment in the United States, tests revealed last June that the disease was gone. Destiny’s family now hopes to raise awareness of her condition. Her mom, 27, said: “We are over the moon that she is now in remission. I’m so proud of her because she has been through such a difficult journey – the whole family has.”
PT SAVES 500TH LIFE
The word cancer can turn the life of anyone upside down within seconds. But for survivors like Lou Lovingood, it brings out a warrior who refuses to give up.
“I’m 63 years old. I have a lot of living I want to do,” she said. Cancer has always been a part of Lou’s life, as her mother, uncle and grandmother died of it. So when she found out she had bilateral breast cancer, she wasn’t exactly shocked and didn’t let her diagnosis slow her down. She chose to go to the Provision Center for Proton Therapy: “the amount of radiation I would get with photon therapy would be devastating to my heart and lungs because I had it in both breasts,” she said. Now Lou is the 500th graduate of the PT program. Surrounded by her favorite people, Lou had only one message: “If it’s caught early, it can be treated and handled a lot easier than if you wait.” She is proof that the battle can be won and proof why you should never stop fighting.
BRAIN TUMOR BOY TO HAVE PT IN THE US
A family from England has won funding from the NHS to go to America so their little boy diagnosed with a brain tumor can receive specialist proton therapy treatment.
Tommy Lines was just 3 years old when an MRI scan for a visual impairment showed a golf-ball sized tumor in his brain and he was diagnosed with a very rare grade 4 cancerous tumor. After 3 major brain surgeries over an 18-month period, he now requires radiotherapy and aggressive chemotherapy. As traditional radiotherapy could leave him brain damaged, Tommy’s parents asked the NHS to fund his proton therapy treatment in America. After a 5-week wait, they’ve just learned it had been accepted. However, Tommy’s parents still need to raise money to cover the everyday cost of their 10-week stay with Tommy’s big sister, unpaid work leave, mortgage and bills, as when treatment is finished in February 2016 at least, they will still have a home to bring their children back to. Friends and family have set up a CrowdFunding website to help them: http://bit.ly/1Hn3bow.
