An 8-year-old girl in Utah was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of breast cancer on Nov 9. Chrissy battles secretory breast carcinoma, making the third-grader the youngest known patient to have the disease.

She approached her parents on a Sunday afternoon in October with a lump on her chest. The family was devastated after a series of tests reveal that Chrissy suffers from a rare condition that accounts for less than .15 per cent of the total breast cancer cases.

“I was in shock, no child should ever have to go through cancer,” Annette Turner, Chrissy’s mother, tells ABC News. “It hit your family, it hit your little one,” she adds. “It’s devastating.”

Her surgery is scheduled early in December at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Subsequently, she will stay in Primary Children’s Hospital during recovery. Dr Brian Bucher, who is part of the team caring for Chrissy, mentions that the breast carcinoma is very treatable. According to him, she only needs to undergo a simple mastectomy that will remove all the remaining breast tissue to prevent cancer relapse.

The Turner family has faced similar challenges before. Chrissy’s father, Troy, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2008, while her mother is a cervical cancer survivor.

ABC’s doctor, Jennifer Ashton, urges parents to watch out for dramatic breast size irregularity. She emphasises the importance of physical examination, breast ultrasound and referral to a specialist to identify the cancer early on.

To fund the procedure, a GoFundMe campaign was started. This will ease the financial burden for the family that filed for bankruptcy in July 2013.

“I was kind of scared to kind of figure out what it was,” Chrissy said. “I hope that I fight it off.”

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