![\"Ellie](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2019\/06\/12\/17\/14702584-7133639-image-a-10_1560356215399.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAn eight-year-old girl survived stage IV cancer after doctors ‘misread her scans’ for three years.<\/p>\n
Ellie Shoup, from Mounds View, Minnesota, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a cancer that forms in nerve tissue, when she was just 11 months old.<\/p>\n
Doctors surgically removed her tumor and told her parents that she had a 90 to 95 percent chance of survival and didn’t need any more treatment, reported KARE 11<\/a>.<\/p>\n
But, as it turns out, the physicians had been misreading Ellie’s scans for years and, at age four, the family found out Ellie’s cancer had progressed to stage four, meaning it had spread throughout her body.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following months of aggressive treatment and enrollment in a clinical trial in New York, Ellie is now cancer-free.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ellie Shoup, eight, from Mounds View, Minnesota, was diagnosed with stage II neuroblastoma, a cancer that forms in nerve tissue, at 11 months. Pictured: Ellie, left, with her mother\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Doctors](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2019\/06\/12\/17\/14702592-7133639-image-m-12_1560356229527.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Doctors surgically removed the tumor and told Ellie’s parents that she didn’t need any more treatment. Pictured: Ellie being held by her mother during treatment as a toddler<\/p>\n
Ellie’s mother, Andrea Shoup, told KARE 11 that she was devastated when her daughter was first diagnosed as an infant.<\/p>\n
‘If there is anything that you don’t prepare for in life, it is to be told that your child has cancer,’ she said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The tumor, which was in baby Ellie’s neck, was removed, and, during follow-up appointments, doctors told her parents that she was ‘fine’.<\/p>\n
However, Shoup said she felt like something was wrong, and, in April 2015, she and her husband asked for a second opinion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
They learned that Ellie’s cancer was not gone and, in fact, had spread. She now had stage IV neuroblastoma.<\/p>\n
‘We learned our team had misread our scans for three years,’ Shoup told KARE 11.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘We wiped out our savings…and incurred a lot of debt.\u00a0 In the first year of treatment, our insurance was billed over a million dollars.’\u00a0<\/p>\n
Neuroblastoma is a cancer that develops in immature nerve cells throughout the body.<\/p>\n
It most commonly begins in the adrenal glands, which are right on top of the kidneys, but can also develop in other places such as the chest, abdomen or spine.<\/p>\n
Symptoms include abdominal pain, chest pain, dark circles around the eyes, fever, and weight loss.<\/p>\n
![\"Three](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2019\/06\/12\/19\/14707256-7133639-Three_years_later_Ellie_s_parents_learned_doctors_had_been_readi-a-19_1560363637415.jpg\")
![\"Ellie's](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2019\/06\/12\/19\/14707234-7133639-Ellie_s_parents_enrolled_her_in_a_clinical_trial_at_Memorial_Slo-m-18_1560363630798.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Three years later, Ellie’s parents learned doctors had been reading her scans incorrectly and her cancer had progressed to stage IV. Ellie’s parents enrolled her in a clinical trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Pictured, left and right: Ellie<\/p>\n
![\"Ellie's](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2019\/06\/12\/17\/14702586-7133639-image-a-18_1560356286556.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Ellie’s tumors have disappeared, but she is remaining in the trial until it end in August to prevent relapse. Pictured: Ellie, right, with her brother and father<\/p>\n
The cancer is most frequently diagnosed in children who are five years old or younger.<\/p>\n
Treatment depends on the tumor’s location and size but can include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy and stem cell transplants.<\/p>\n
According to the American Cancer Society, about 800 new cases of neuroblastoma are diagnosed each year in the US.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shoup and her husband enrolled in several clinical trials, before being accepted by one at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.<\/p>\n
Several other patients with the disease have enrolled in a trial at the hospital, which is testing a neuroblastoma vaccine that could help prevent relapse.<\/p>\n
Ellie is now cancer-free but she is remaining in the clinical trial through its end in August in the hope that the longer she’s in the trial, the lower her risk of relapse will be.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘I have to believe things worked out the way they did for a reason,’ Shoup told KARE 11. ‘I am happy to move past that resentment and that anger to a place we can feel thankful that she is doing well.’\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An eight-year-old girl survived stage IV cancer after doctors ‘misread her scans’ for three years. Ellie Shoup, from Mounds View, Minnesota, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a cancer that forms in nerve tissue, when she was just 11 months old. Doctors surgically removed her tumor and told her parents that she had a 90 to 95 Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}