Remembering Elias' Battle with Liver Cancer's Fundraising Page

Elias' Story:

On August 15th, 2019, Elias went to Boston Children's Hospital (BCH) to have a cyst removed from his liver. A couple of hours into the surgery, they found the mass to be cancerous. After hours of surgery, he was in the ICU for 2 days before he was released to the recovery unit.

His care team was able to identify the cancer to be Undifferentiated Embryonal Sarcoma of the Liver (UESL, an extremely rare form of cancer with less than a few hundred cases recorded). After a month of recovery, his body was finally well enough to start chemo treatment. He experienced minimal side effects from chemo and enjoyed life to the fullest.

On January 17th, 2020, he finished a total of 6 cycles of chemo and was declared "cancer-free." We celebrated at his favorite dine-out spot, Olive Garden, where he proudly announced to everyone "I kicked cancer's butt!"

Unfortunately, about a month later, he started showing signs of lethargy, and during a weekend visit to urgent care, they spotted an enlarged lymph node on his neck. He was admitted back to BCH on February 23rd, 2020. Test results later showed that cancer had metastasized...

Despite the positive result from previous chemo treatments, his body was not able to receive more of the same chemo due to the high toxicity of the treatment. In the following months, the team administered a couple of different chemo combinations while trying to minimize various physical symptoms caused by cancer cells attacking Elias' body. However, the cancer was just too aggressive...

On May 2nd, 2020, just shy of his 6th birthday, Elias passed with both parents by his side while listening to his favorite Disney soundtrack, "Moana."

Elias' care team and the goal of this fundraiser:

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Dr. O'Neill is a pediatric oncology physician-scientist with a passion for translational research and expertise in the care of pediatric solid tumor patients. She serves as the Clinical Director of the Solid Tumor Program and Medical Director of the Liver Tumor Center of Excellence at the Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center.

We would like to create a prospective registry to study UESL by collecting patient samples and clinical information. This registry will serve as an opportunity to learn more about this disease, in aggregate, than has ever been achieved to date, with the goal of informing clinical course decisions and improving treatments for this disease.

Your gift will support the launch of this registry, and we thank you for helping Dr. O’Neill and her team better understand UESL to improve the treatment and care of patients at Dana-Farber and beyond.