Overview

• Zoë Handscomb-Edwards was diagnosed with PEComa at 16 weeks pregnant after a painless golf ball–sized lump was initially dismissed as a pulled muscle.
• Surgeons removed a 20cm tumour from her leg in May 2023 while she was seven months pregnant, followed by a planned C-section to deliver her daughter, Penelope, in July 2023.
• A PET scan shortly after surgery revealed the cancer had spread, and she was given a six-month to two-year prognosis that she has now exceeded.
• She continues to receive palliative radiotherapy two years later as doctors maintain that the cancer is incurable.
• PEComa affects fewer than one in one million people annually and has no established treatment pathway under the NHS, prompting reliance on private fundraising for experimental therapies.