Manuel’s expressive eyes closed forever on the last day of February of this 2023. With a broken heart, his mother reports that the rare cancer that had plagued him for five months ended his life.

Manuel, like babies his age, only 17 months old, played and went to the nursery. Everything was normal until the days started with a fever.

The feverish processes did not subside and in September 2022 the moment came when they took him to the hospital.

After the first treatments came the worrying diagnosis: Manuel had liver cancer and after an ultrasound, metastases were discovered in the lungs and abdomen, reports El Diario de Valladolid.

It was a rare cancer that science calls rhabdoid and describes as aggressive.

The most common types of childhood cancer

Solidarity campaign for Manuel’s health

“You have a child to give him everything and you could never imagine that would happen,” said Sara Fernández, the baby’s combative mother.

When they were diagnosed on October 14 last year, the family came together, sheltered by kind hands, to cope with the “hospital life” they had begun to experience.

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Today words come out of his mouth to thank him for the help received and to call for support for research into this rare cancer, which according to the media “does not yet have a specific treatment”.

A solidarity concert is planned for March 5 in Valladolid, Spain, the Spanish press reports.

In Villasarracino, the city where the child’s parent is from, they hope to run the duathlon on March 18 and add it to the cause.

How’s that rare cancer

Indeed, the rhabdoid or rhabdoid tumor, according to the National Cancer Institute website, is “a rare, fast-growing cancer that usually forms in the kidneys or central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), although it also forms in the soft tissues of other parts from the body.

They note that “rhabdoid tumors tend to spread rapidly, are difficult to treat and have a poor prognosis.”

As with baby Manuel, these tumors occur in infants and young children.

In 20 Minutes they say that this form of cancer has a mortality rate between 80 and 100%.

It is a very aggressive pediatric tumor with an incidence of 1/2,000,000 and usually affects boys and girls, usually less than 3 years of age. Therefore, little research has been done and to this day there is no specific treatment: Fundación Cris contra el Cáncer

research support

Via digital media, the CRIS Cancer Foundation reported that Manuel had recently entered a CRIS advanced therapies unit at La Paz Hospital, which treats patients who have previously failed to respond to conventional treatments.

They acknowledge that Sara, the child’s mother, “launched a fundraiser just two weeks ago with the aim of opening a research line on rhabdoid tumors, which caused a great wave of solidarity across Spain.”

The foundation announces its commitment to creating a line of research on rhabdoid tumors in memory of the child and bids farewell with this emotional message: “Your smile, Manuel, will always be with us.”