But 12-year-old's brain tumor is inoperable; boy received special permission for entry from Shin Bet.
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICHSheba Medical Center 224.88(photo credit: Courtesy)
The 12-year-old Teheran boy who has been undergoing treatment since Friday for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) in his brain and spinal cord at Sheba Medical Center's Edmund and Lily Safra Children's Hospital in Tel Hashomer will not benefit from surgery, according to his doctors, but he might improve somewhat from customized and more advanced chemotherapy.
Identified only as "Guy," the boy arrived via Turkey with his father and grandmother after a Turkish hospital did little for him and surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy during most of the year since he was diagnosed did not help him.
The boy, whose family speaks only a few words of English and who received special permission for entry from the Shin Bet security service, is being treated by Sheba as a "charity case." The hospital has not made payment a precondition for care and does not have information about the parents' professions or financial condition.
"If he had been brought here directly a year ago, we probably could have improved his condition more, but not cured him," said Dr. Amos Toren, head of the Safra Hospital's hemato-pediatric oncology unit, where the boy is being treated.
GBM is the most common and most aggressive type of primary brain tumor, accounting for about half of all primary brain tumor cases and a fifth of all intracranial tumors. Treatment may include chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery, all of which are regarded as palliative measures that do not cure the condition. Even with complete surgical removal of the tumor supplemented by other treatment, experts say the survival rate for GBM remains very low. However, many advances in recent years can increase patients' quality of life and survival time.
Toren told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that tests the unit had conducted since Guy's arrival showed the cancer was in both sides of his brain and had spread to the spinal cord, which did not mean a good prognosis.
"But you never know. Sometimes therapy can suddenly improve the quality of life," he said.
Guy is fully conscious, but unable to sit, fully paralyzed on the left side of his body and weak on the right. He can't control his sphincters, but he is not blind.
"We received him suddenly after being contacted from Turkey, with only partial medical records," added Toren. "The quality of two operations, radiotherapy and chemotherapy that he received in Iran was not high enough, and in Turkey they only performed an MRI scan. If I had known more about his condition, I would have told the parents all the details and let them decide if they should bring him here."
The father and grandmother displayed fears that if their names or more details about them became known, they could be in serious danger in Iran, as the regime there regards Israel as a major enemy and has called for its destruction, said Sheba Medical Center director-general Prof. Ze'ev Rotstein.
"We never even asked who will pay for treatment here. It is very important to show the Iranian people that we are willing to treat them even though their country has no diplomatic relations with us and the regime has said it wants to destroy Israel," he said.
It was not the first time that an Iranian patient had come in recent years to an Israeli hospital for treatment. The Hadassah Medical Organization said on Sunday that it had received a handful of patients who were treated and then sent home.
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