Skip to content

Girl 'youngest' to have rare throat cancer surgery

Family An eight-year-old girl wearing a yellow top is sitting in a hospital room with a small plastic tube and device attached to the front of her neck. She is smiling, has no hair, and there is an orange giraffe image painted on the right side of her face.Family
Melody, from Stoke-on-Trent, had the surgery at Birmingham Children's Hospital last year

An eight-year-old girl could be the youngest person to have undergone surgery to remove a rare cancerous throat tumour.

Melody, from Stoke-on-Trent, is recovering after having a tumour "the size of an orange" removed from her throat and her food pipe rebuilt with tissue from her thigh.

She had the surgery at Birmingham Children's Hospital, which also involved removing her voice box and thyroid gland.

"It's unprecedented for a child of Melody's age to undergo this type of procedure," Kate Stephenson, one of her surgeons, said. "In fact, as far as we know, this situation has never presented itself in a child this young before."

Melody's mum Charlene first took her daughter to the Royal Stoke University Hospital after she started struggling with breathing and swallowing last year.

"When we found out it was cancer, our hearts just sank. Melody's tumour was around the size of an orange so she was in a really critical condition," she said.

Family A woman and a young girl hug in a blue chair. The woman has brown hair, and is wearing a nose ring and a blue T-shirt. The girl has no hair and is wearing a pink and white striped top. She has a small plastic tube and device attached to the front of her neck.Family
Melody's mum Charlene said her daughter's tumour was "around the size of an orange"

Melody was transferred to Birmingham Children's Hospital to be treated by its specialist cancer team.

Surgery to remove her voice box became "the only option" after chemotherapy was unsuccessful, Charlene said.

Melody had the six-hour surgery, known as a total laryngopharyngectomy and thyroidectomy, on 30 September.

A team of surgeons from Birmingham Children's Hospital and the city's Queen Elizabeth Hospital was put together to plan and perform the procedure.

Family A girl is standing next to a Christmas tree. She is wearing a silver sequinned skirt and a cream jumper with sequins embroidered on it in a bow pattern. She has very short brown hair and is wearing a silver headband.Family
Melody has started to recover from her surgery and can eat all her favourite foods again

"It was really hard for Melody to begin with, losing her hair and then being faced with losing her voice box. She also needed a feeding tube for a while, so she couldn't eat," Charlene said.

"She was really down, and it was really hard, as her mum, to watch her go through it all."

Melody has since started to recover and adjust to life post-surgery. She is learning oesophageal speech, which involves using her food pipe to make sounds, and is using an electrolarynx, a machine that produces vibrations to create voice sounds.

The schoolgirl was invited to turn on the Birmingham Children's Hospital Christmas lights last month to celebrate her ringing her end-of-treatment bell and discharge from the hospital. The teams that cared for her attended the event to cheer her on.

"She can now eat all the things she loves again, and she has come on leaps and bounds," her mum Charlene said.

"She has been so brave, and we are all so proud of her."

Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.

Related internet links