8
What is Cancer?
Cancer occurs when cells in the body go out of control and multiply.They stop
working properly and as their numbers increase they form a lump known as
a tumour.
Cancer in children is rare and thankfully numbers of cases are not increasing but
there are still 1200 new cases each year in the British Isles.
What is Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma?
A DIPG is a tumour in the brain stem.These tumours - which are malignant and
grow rapidly - are inoperable because they are located in such a critical part of the
brain, and the mass of the tumour is a combination of both good and bad cells.
The average age of patients is between fve and ten years old and around 35
children are diagnosed in the UK each year.Most children die within 12 months
of diagnosis.
In Katie’s case we noticed lots of small changes over a period of fve weeks. She
felt faint and bumped her head getting out of the shower,which we put down to
tiredness (Katie was a very keen dancer). Looking back this was the frst sign that
something was wrong. She then started to feel unbalanced when walking which, in
hindsight, got progressively worse. Katie also started vomiting in the mornings, and
generally lost her confdence.
Symptoms are varied depending on the child and can include:
Muscle weakness on one side of the body
Problems with swallowing
Speech problems
Crossed eyes/squinting
Drowsiness
Headaches (can be worse in the morning but not necessarily)
Section 1