The mum who donated her tragic five-year-old daughter's brain after 'death sentence'
20.03.2023 - 10:05
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A mum has hailed a £2.5m donation to a new cancer research centre after her five-year-old daughter tragically died from an aggressive brain cancer in 2019. The funding is going to the same research group that Isabella Ortiz's brain was donated in her 'final gift to the world' following her tragic death.
Isabella, from Bramhall, was diagnosed with an inoperable diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) in June 2017, a very aggressive and high-grade tumour. This came after family noticed she had developed a squint in December the previous year.
She was started on an intense course of chemotherapy but ran out of treatment options on the NHS. Her mum, Assunta Trapanese, managed to raise £120,000 for a treatment trial at The Harley Street Clinic in London which managed to extend her life for some time. However, she tragically died in October 2019.
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Her mum, 47, described the diagnosis as a 'death sentence', undergoing more than 30 rounds of treatment at hospitals such as Alder Hey and The Christie. "We quickly learned what a DIPG diagnosis really meant. It was a death sentence," she said.
"It wasn’t if she would die, but when. Her quality of life, however long that might be, was the most important thing for us. Like others before us we soon realised that treatment options were limited."
Assunta has hailed a £2.5m funding agreement from the charity Brain Tumour Research which is being awarded to the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in Surrey, where a team of scientists led by Professor Chris Jones will form the charity’s fourth Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence. In November 2019, Isabella's parents donated