When California 10-year-old Hannah Powell-Auslam felt a lump near her ribcage, she didn't think much of it. But her parents took her in to see a doctor and she eventually was sent for an ultrasound.
Doctors learned that the lump was actually a two-inch tumor. Hannah had secretory carcinoma, a slow-growing form of breast cancer, which has spread.
From CBSNews.com:
Hannah had a mastectomy. Now, her doctor says the cancer has spread to
a lymph node, meaning more surgery or chemotherapy. But radiation is
out.
"If you radiate the developing breast," [Dr. Helena] Chang says, "it will never grow develop fully, because it becomes atrophic."
ABC News reports that this type of cancer is exceedingly rare for girls Hannah's age. And also that her prognosis is good. Some are also cautioning parents to not fear for their own young daughters' health.
"I don't want the outcome to be that mothers are panicked across the
country wanting to have their daughters in elementary and middle and
high school to get mammograms or even clinical breast exams," [Lillie] Shockney, [administrative director of the Johns Hopkins Avon Foundation Breast Center in Baltimore, Md.]
said. "This is a highly unusual situation."
The family is chronicling her treatments and battle against the disease at OurLittleSweetPea.com.
Still, makes you wonder what caused this girl's breast cancer. And whether we will be seeing more cancers in young kids, like this 8-year-old.
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Photo: CBSNews.com
