Dad-of-four diagnosed with cancer he 'never heard of' left medics stumped
dailyrecord.co.ukA man was given a shocker cancer diagnosis after medics were stumped at the cause of pains from one side of his body. Father-of-four Chris Russell received the news of a form of the illness he had never heard of.The construction worker from Manchester spent a year bouncing from one medical specialist to the next without a definitive answer on why he was in pain.
He first alerted a doctor to a lump on his shoulder before multiple tests, reports the Manchester Evening News.The 54-year-old was given the terrible news that, after further investigation, the lump was in fact a secondary tumour, meaning he had cancer that had spread from where it first originated.Medical professionals, however, could not pinpoint where the illness had cone from.
Chris was informed he had cancer of the unknown primary (CUP) a rare form of cancer with a poor prognosis. Issues over lack of research and funding mean CUP has had devastating outcomes for patients.The rare form is said to make up two per cent of all cancer diagnoses but is the sixth most common cause of death via the illness.The reason for poor prognosis is that doctors often can only give a combination of chemotherapy drugs used to treat a broad range of cancers without knowing the true source of the original tumour.
Chris was told chemotherapy was his only option, but the team at his local hospital didn’t know whether it would work.He said: “My diagnosis has been a rollercoaster.
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