An Ohio mother once told she had terminal stage 4 cancer has undergone lifesaving treatment and gone on to have a second child.
Maralee Lellio, 37, received an innovative oral cancer therapy after triple-negative breast cancer spread aggressively to her brain. Although doctors initially considered her condition terminal, her extraordinary treatment journey ultimately led to a full recovery.
‘For everyone facing a dire diagnosis, regardless of how slim the statistics appear, no matter how unlikely you’re told it is to survive, I want you to know: It’s possible,’ Lellio told People.
Lellio’s health battle began at 28, when she discovered a small lump in her right breast. Doctors initially reassured her that it was benign.
‘I left her office with so much confidence and joy because I didn’t have anything to worry about,’ Lellio told the outlet.
But within four months, the lump had nearly doubled in size, growing from an almond-sized mass to one roughly as large as a baseball. A mammogram then confirmed that she had stage 2B triple-negative breast cancer.
At the time, Lellio was raising her one-year-old daughter and working as a teacher. She underwent a double mastectomy followed by chemotherapy.
‘I felt like I was in the middle of a whirlpool. It was panic and dread and fear. I looked at my little daughter and thought, “How could I bring you into this world just to turn around and die?”‘ Lellio told the outlet.
Maralee Lellio received an innovative oral cancer treatment after breast cancer spread aggressively to her brain.
While caring for her one-year-old daughter and working as a teacher, Lellio underwent a double mastectomy and chemotherapy.
In 2023, Lellio conceived naturally and gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Her children are now nine years old and 22 months old.
Several months later, she began suffering from severe headaches and dizziness, even though tests showed no sign of cancer. Doctors initially suggested that the symptoms might be linked to depression.
‘My doctor told me I was depressed. But I didn’t feel depressed. He said I needed to exercise and offered to prescribe an antidepressant,’ she told the outlet.
Lellio and her husband, Andrew, had hoped to have another child, but they put those plans on hold while she focused on her health. After completing her initial cancer treatment, she began pursuing in vitro fertilization.
When the headaches became increasingly severe, an MRI detected a large tumor in the center of her brain. Doctors confirmed that the breast cancer had returned and spread aggressively, leaving them with no curative treatment available.
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The tumor triggered serious seizures, prompting Lellio to undergo a craniotomy, a complex operation intended to remove the mass. Following the procedure, she temporarily lost the ability to walk.
She recalled her doctor telling her, ‘I’m not going to lie to you, Maralee, all we can do is buy you as many years as we can, but it’s not going to be a long time.’
‘I looked at my husband who looked terrified and heartbroken. It was so overwhelming, I went numb,’ Lellio told the outlet.
Lellio was then advised to seek care at Cleveland Clinic, where she could try an emerging treatment. There, she underwent five rounds of radiation and began taking an innovative oral medication known as a PARP inhibitor.
Lellio was referred to Cleveland Clinic, where she pursued an emerging treatment for her advanced cancer.
According to the Dr. Halle Moore from Cleveland Clinic, the radiation therapy completely shrunk Lellio’s tumor, and she had no evidence of active disease.
Lellio and her husband, Andrew Lellio had previously planned to have a second child but paused their efforts due to her health. When her initial cancer treatment ended, she started the process of IVF before she later got pregnant naturally
‘Our specialists found the tumor was growing back faster than expected. Maralee underwent five rounds of partial‑brain radiation to stop its progression,’ Dr. Halle Moore wrote in a Cleveland Clinic Facebook statement.
‘She then began a PARP inhibitor, which is an oral cancer therapy especially effective in people with BRCA mutations, which she has,’ Dr. Moore wrote.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, the radiation therapy completely shrunk the tumor and Lellio had no evidence of active disease. Lellio paused treatment in hopes of becoming pregnant.
In 2023, Lellio conceived naturally before giving birth to her second child, a healthy baby girl. Today, her children are aged nine-years-old and 22 months.
‘My life with these kids is messy and perfect, and I love it. I want people going through something similar to see one more person and think, “She’s doing it. Maybe I can, too,”‘ she told Cleveland Clinic.
According to the American Cancer Society, about 12 to 13 percent of women in the US could develop breast cancer during their lifetime. If a woman had a harmful BRCA mutation, the risk could rise between 55 and 65 percent.
Our News Outlet has reached out to Maralee and Andrew Lellio and the Cleveland Clinic for comments.
