According to doctors, Belgian Lucas (12) had only two years to live, but against all expectations he is cured of a rare brain tumor | Domestic

In 2017, doctors diagnosed a malignant brainstem glioma in the then 6-year-old Lucas. This is a brain tumor that originates in the brain stem. “My parents noticed because I could no longer walk straight and often fainted,” says the teenager. The rare disease occurs most often in children and in most cases there is no cure. Doctors therefore believed that little Lucas had only one to two years to live.

But still the doctors did not give up hope. They sent Lucas’ parents to Gustave-Roussy Hospital near Paris, where French researcher Jacques Grill was conducting a clinical study on the rare cancer.

In the first test phase, 233 sick children were treated, including Lucas – who had traveled to France with his parents for the experiment. “We had a lot of hope,” says Cédric, Lucas’ dad. “But the doctors were clear: the statistics of the experimental treatment were not very promising.”

The patients who participated in the clinical trial underwent radiotherapy and were also administered three types of medications. One of these drugs, ‘liver olimus’, proved to be very effective for Lucas. According to Grill, the drug makes the tumor more sensitive to radiation. “In fact, we prevent the cell from repairing what radiotherapy wants to damage,” the doctor explains. An additional advantage is that the medicine has few side effects.

Lucas underwent the treatment for five years and finally achieved the hoped-for result. After that period, doctors no longer found any trace of the tumor on the scans. There was still a small “bump” visible, but that would be a scar from the biopsy. In other words, Luke was healed.

“We think Lucas had a special form of the disease. We need to understand what it is so that we can replicate in other patients what happened naturally in his case. That would be fantastic,” says Dr. Grill. According to him, Lucas’s course of illness is an important reason for further research. The doctor strives to perfect the treatment. “In this way we may be able to get the disease under control in more cases,” it said. A second test phase has now been started. 360 patients will be treated.

And Lucas, he’s still doing well. He has not been taking any medicine for a year and is no longer undergoing any treatments. The boy’s parents are over the moon. “For us it is a small miracle,” they respond.