A young British woman suffered from leukemia and histiocytic sarcoma. Doctors said the patient had very little chance of survival. But she managed to overcome her cancer thanks to an innovative treatment
- Leukemia affects 9,000 to 10,000 people each year in France. These are cancers of the white blood cells or cells that develop into white blood cells.
- Patients with histiocytic sarcoma may present with a mass, bowel obstruction, bone lesions, rash, or numerous tumors on the trunk and limbs.
11-year-old schoolgirl Jeanie-May Cooke has entered the record books as the first person in England to beat a rare cancer. In 2017, she was diagnosed with leukemia and histiocytic sarcoma. A year later, the tumor spread and reached his lungs, kidneys and liver. During the same year, she had most of her right leg amputated due to complications from leukemia and began to use a wheelchair.
Taking a new drug for 54 months
In 2018, doctors notified her parents and told them there was nothing more they could do about this rare and incurable cancer. Clearly, the patient’s chances of survival were very slim. But the young Englishwoman and her family did not want to give up. “I begged them to try to find a solution and to get in touch with an American specialist who was using a pioneering drug”, told the British daily The Daily Mirror, Katie Hannaford, mother of Jeanie-May Cooke. She implored them to test a new drug, a protein kinase inhibitor being tested in the United States, on her daughter.
She “is now cured of cancer”
Good news: the practitioners accepted. Thus, the teenager took this new drug for 54 months. Shortly after, health professionals told her that she had successfully overcome her rare and incurable cancer. “Jeanie is now cancer free and we are planning a big birthday party on August 20th and renting a big bell for Jeanie to ring and thank everyone who has supported her. It is wonderful to see her being a child like the others, a chance that we thought she would never have”, explained Katie Hannaford.
