Comedy night for DIPG

An aggressive and untreatable form of cancer took Kelowna's Sevanah Simmons when she was just six years old, so a local real estate company is trying to do what it can to help stop the deadly disease from claiming other children.

DIPG, which is short for diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, is an inoperable and aggressive brain tumour with a zero per cent survival rate that has seen no advances in treatment in more than 50 years.

“Neil Armstrong’s daughter, Muffie, actually passed away from it in 1962, and essentially the treatment is still the same,” Sevanah’s mom, Angelina, says. “It’s just palliative care and radiation. Right now, there is no cure, not even one on the horizon.”

The fact that awareness, treatment and prognosis have barely changed in more than half a century shows just how much work there is to do.

When David Harper of 2 Percent Realty Okanagan learned that his daughter’s teacher, Angelina, had lost her daughter to DIPG, which he had never heard of, he decided to act.

For more on this story, visit Okanagan Edge.