When you visit your doctor, or even see a specialist in the hospital, the least you expect is that they catch serious problems in time. So if your child was told that a cancerous tumor was merely a wart, you’d be well within your rights to be angry…and that’s exactly what happened to one family in the United Kingdom.
New reports describe how a toddler from Gwynedd, Wales, was told by doctors that a large lump on her foot was merely a “wart” – and doctors continued to get it wrong for two whole years.
The child, Nansi Alys, visited a general practitioner in May, 2021, only to be told that the growing lump on her toe was simply a wart that didn’t need to be treated. But as time went by, the “war” kept growing, and the child’s parents continued to take her to the doctor for further evaluation. But every time they visited, the child’s mother, Leila Evans, was told that she needn’t worry.
After initially calling the lump a wart, doctors soon started referring to it as a cyst – but for some reason, didn’t opt to drain the cyst. By May, 2023, doctors finally realized something was wrong and opted to remove the lump in a surgery. After the surgery, surgeons realized just how serious the problem was. It wasn’t a wart and it wasn’t a cyst; it was a cancerous tumor.
Specialists performed a number of tests on the tissue removed in the surgery, revealing that she was actually afflicted with a kind of cancer that affects only a handful of people in every million. The tumor, known as desmoid-type fibromatosis, is a kind of tumor that develops in soft tissue. Technically, these tumors are not cancerous – but they can be. Luckily for Nansi, the tumors pose no further risk after being removed – though they can return in the place where they were originally removed.
You can read more about the story here.
In the meantime…watch out for lumps that keep getting bigger. And always get a second opinion.
