£100,000 appeal to save boy with rare illness

The parents of a seven-year-old boy diagnosed with a brain tumour which cannot be operated on in this country are trying to raise £100,000 to take him to the US for a new treatment.

Fabian Burke-Georgiou was told he had a diffuse pontine glioma — a rare, high-grade malignant tumour — four months ago after experiencing severe headaches and tiredness.

His parents Wayne, 31, and Zorzia, 32, were told by doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital that his only chance of survival was to have chemotherapy but that even with treatment, he only had a five per cent chance of making his eighth birthday.

Only 40 children a year are diagnosed with the disease and most die within a year of being diagnosed.

But the couple, from Finsbury Park, who have a second son, five-year-old Gabriel, refused to give up hope.

They spent day and night researching medical books and the internet and found the Burzynski Clinic in Houston, Texas, which was running 18 trials into new gene therapies for cancer.

Mr Burke-Georgiou, a sports coach, said: "I will do everything I can to get him the best possible care and if it can't be done in the UK, I will find a way to take him abroad."

The clinic says its antineoplaston therapy, which targets cancer cells without destroying normal cells, could give Fabian a 30 to 50 per cent chance of survival.

But the treatment will cost £100,000 for the first year and is not eligble for NHS funding. A spokesman for Great Ormond Street Hospital said there was no medical evidence to suggest it would be more effective than chemotherapy.

Mr Burke-Georgiou said it was worth it if it gave a chance of saving his son: "It is a small amount of money to save a person's life but it is an amount I cannot find on my own. I really feel that this is Fabian's last chance to live."

The Burke-Georgious have also been in touch with Steven and Natasha Perrin-Skippen, from Romford, Essex, whose daughter Maya, six, was diagnosed with the same tumour in 2006. They raised the money to take Maya to the clinic at the end of last year and she is responding well to the treatment.

Mr Burke-Georgiou said: "It just makes me realise that by hook or by crook, we need to find the money."