A second-year UCT student is fighting for his future after being diagnosed with a rare cancer during lockdown lockdown. WeekendArgus
“Two weeks after lockdown happened, I noticed a mass in my neck starting to form. It was really uncomfortable and became painful,” Cilliers said.
It’s now two months since the diagnosis. He has lost 12kg, and the cancer has spread to the bones of his hips, shoulders and vertebrae – but chemotherapy seems to be shrinking the main tumour in his neck. His oncologist, Dr Daleen Geldenhuys, said that there was so little research on this type of tumour because there were so few in the world – but if chemotherapy reduces Cilliers’s neck tumour enough, he will hopefully be able to enrol in an international clinical trial.NUT carcinoma originates when part of one specific chromosome breaks off and attaches to another chromosome. The cells begin to grow and divide rapidly, and don’t die off like normal cells do.
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