the youngest patient in the world

With only 7 years oldMaura has been diagnosed with a breast cancer in Chile, thus making it the youngest patient in the world to suffer from the disease. The first symptoms appeared two years ago, when the girl was 5. As her mother, Patricia Muñoz, explained on Televisión Nacional de Chile, one day when she was bathing the child “she found a lump under her nipple.”. Cases like Maura’s are sporadic and unusualSpanish oncologist José Ángel García Sáez told the same media outlet. “Breast cancer is exceptional in the paediatric population. At 30 years I think I have registered only 40 cases in children under 18 [años]”.

A long road

Due to the poor health situation in Chile.with long waiting lines and little experience in this type of cancers in minors, it was not until April 2022 who were able to test the child. At first, the child was given a misdiagnosis and the lump was identified as a ‘benign tumor’but it grew over time. At August she underwent a mastectomy -surgical removal of the breast-although it was not until following monthafter the analysis, when finally the family learned that it was breast cancer.

In ‘Contigo en Directo,’ another Chilean television program, the mother also denounced the lack of help she has hadclaiming that “this is already known in the Government and I have not even received a phone call.” The family is relying in a special way on the Chilean Association of Oncology Groups., who has put you in contact with various physicians in Spainamong them Luis Madero, a prestigious oncopediatrician who has some experience in similar cases.

Uncertainty

Felipe Taglepresident of the entity, has stated that “worldwide there is no case like that of Maura. There is one chance in 400 million“. Because of this lack of cases, the following steps are still uncertain.

The family carries almost two months awaiting an examination to know in what state the disease is in and, most importantly, to know whether it has formed metastases. In the event that the cancer has not spread, Tagle rules that “it is necessary to make a radiationa process for which there are no records either.”

For now there remains only the waiting and uncertainty. “My daughter is mutilated and that is the pain I have. She does not understand Why she doesn’t have her mom.”states Muñoz. Once the results have been obtained, the family does not rule out traveling to another country to follow the treatment. Whatever is necessary to put an end to a cancer that, sadly, will already leave Maura lifelong sequelae.