Chloé Lagadou / Photo credits: JOEL SAGET / AFP 07:02, October 02, 2023

Suffering from brain cancer deemed incurable at the age of six, Lucas, now a 12-year-old Belgian child, managed to beat the disease. However, faced with the diagnosis, Belgian doctors seemed helpless. Back on the story of this little boy who beat his cancer after a long medical journey.

Belgian doctors were helpless in the face of his illness. Six years after being diagnosed with brain cancer deemed incurable, 12-year-old Lucas has just recovered from it and it may be thanks to his parents' decision: to take him to France to try to find a miracle cure.

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"I told his parents we couldn't cure him"

At the age of six, Lucas was hospitalized at the Gustave Roussy Institute near Paris. It enters an experimental clinical trial, the last chance treatment. "I told his parents that we would try to contain the disease for as long as possible, but that we would not be able to cure it. Lucas was six years old at diagnosis and was not aware that most children with the same disease would die from it," says his pediatrician, Jacques Grill.

A remission that gives hope

Over the months, Lucas responds extraordinarily to medication and gradually eliminates the disease from his body. "I had not yet seen a child respond so well to treatment," recalls his pediatrician. Five years after starting treatment, all lights are green. Lucas, now a teenager, beat the disease. A remission that gives hope for cancer research, continues Jacques Grill. "It's kind of like Lucas, by the way he responded to treatment, gave us a lead to treat his buddies, it's great."

In Lucas' clinical trial, eight other patients are also considered "long survivors."