Despite receiving no treatment at all, the tumours were shrinking and shrivelling before their eyes. “We had a lot of agonising for what to do,” says Irvine. After a long and frank discussion, they decided to wait as they weighed up the options. Amputation was perhaps the best option, says Alan Irvine, the patient’s doctor at St James’ Hospital, Dublin – but at her age, she was unlikely to adapt well to a prosthetic limb. Given the spread of the tumours, radiotherapy would not have been effective nor could the doctors dig the tumours from the skin. Tests confirmed the worst suspicions: it was carcinoma, a form of skin cancer. By the time she arrived at the hospital, her lower right leg was covered in waxy lumps, eruptions of angry red and livid purple. The 74-year-old woman had initially been troubled by a rash that wouldn’t go away. It was a case that baffled everyone involved.
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