Megan stuns doctors

THE parents of little Megan Malone, who underwent life-saving treatment for a rare brain tumour in New York, have been told there is no longer any trace of cancer in her brain while tumours on her spine also appear to have completely cleared.

The three-and-a-half year old toddler from Kilnamartyra, Co Cork, was diagnosed last October with a rare cancerous brain tumour called PNET medullablastoma, while it was also discovered that the cancer had spread to her spine and the rest of the brain. The condition is so rare that only two children in Ireland are diagnosed with such tumours a year.

Megan was given a less than 20% chance of survival in Ireland, where no treatment for her condition is available. However, her parents were told if they could get her to New York immediately, doctors there believed she would have at least a 50:50 chance. Megan and her family, including three young siblings, moved to New York last December, where she was accepted for a specialist programme of treatment called Head Start at the city’s Presbyterian Hospital.