Scots teen beats rare cancer after treatment in US

A SCOTTISH teenager beat a rare form of cancer thanks to cutting-edge treatment in America.

Brave Eilidh Steel starts off the Race for Life. Pictured: Contributed

The NHS paid for Eilidh Steel, from Dumfriesshire, to fly to Florida for proton beam therapy to treat her cancer of the salivary gland.

This form of radiotherapy, which is not available in the UK, can reduce organ damage for patients. Eilidh was only 12 when doctors at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow removed a growth from a salivary gland on her neck and discovered it was cancerous.

Her mother Debbie had been concerned about the lump for three years. She said: “My legs just buckled away from me when they told us.

“All my instincts had been telling me that the lump was far from normal. To find out it was cancerous was 
devastating. I’d lost both my mum and dad to cancer. All I could think was, ‘Please, no. Not my wee lassie too’.”

Eilidh. now 15. who helped launch Cancer Research’s Race for Life with twin sister Louise in Glasgow yesterday, said: “Raising money to help find and develop new cancer treatments is a way to give hope to many people who are diagnosed with cancer.

“It’s important to me to do everything I can to help.”