Young cancer sufferer Nora loses her battle

A six-year-old Canterbury girl who went to the United States for lifesaving cancer treatment has tragically died.

Nora Guise was diagnosed with hepatoblastoma, a rare cancer of the liver, which was also found in her lungs.

She exhausted all of the curative treatments available in New Zealand, but was accepted into a CAR-T cell trial in the United States, which looked to be her last chance for a cure.

• Nora's bid to beat cancer

The community helped fundraise more than $198,000 for the experimental treatment.

It works by lowering the white blood cell count with lympho depleting chemotherapy and then inserting the CAR-T cells, which boost the white blood cells back up.

Nora and her mother, Elyse, father Rohan and three-year-old sister, Thea, returned from Texas in mid-December after spending five weeks there getting treatment.

Nora, who lived in Rolleston, was diagnosed in August 2018, and the cancer later spread to her lungs.

In November 2018, she underwent major surgery to remove 60 per cent of her liver and the cancerous tumour and had been cancer-free in her liver since.

Nora also had surgery to remove her gallbladder and half of one lung.

Chemotherapy caused permanent hearing loss and impacted her ability to hear high-frequency sounds to the point where she had to wear hearing aids.