British swimmer Archie Goodburn has revealed he has been diagnosed with incurable brain tumours.
The 23-year-old, who won bronze in the men’s 50m breaststroke at the 2019 World Junior Swimming Championships in Hungary and has represented Scotland at the Commonwealth Games, started suffering from numbness and seizures in the build-up to the Olympics trials – where he missed out on qualification by a narrow margin.
Tests carried out after the trials found that Archie has three large inoperable oligodendrogliomas. He now faces radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Announcing the news on his official Instagram account, Archie wrote: “Six weeks ago, my life experienced a profound change as I was diagnosed with three brain tumours.
“In December 2023, my training began to be interrupted by strange episodes. These episodes, initially thought to be hemiplegic migraines, would occur during hard training.
“They would leave me with a loss of strength and a numb sensation on my left side, a deep feeling of fear, nausea and extreme deja vu. I now know that these were in fact seizures.”
Oligodendrogliomas are rare, usually slow-growing tumours which form from oligodendrocytes (a type of glial cell). This type of tumour is more commonly diagnosed in adults rather than in children. The main treatments are surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Archie added: “The silver lining to this diagnosis is that oligodendrogliomas generally respond better to radiotherapy and chemotherapy than many other serious brain tumour types. They are often slow-growing and these tumours are likely years old.
“I am young, I am fit, I have the most phenomenal support network of friends, the best family I could ever hope for and a fantastic girlfriend by my side.
“I am determined to take this head-on, to remain positive and to keep being Archie.”
Hugh Adams, our Head of Stakeholder Relations, said: “Everyone at Brain Tumour Research sends our very best wishes to Archie for his treatment. His diagnosis really brings home the fact that brain tumours are indiscriminate; they can affect anyone at any age. The key to discovering what causes this disease and finding new treatments lies in research like the work we fund at our Centres of Excellence. But we also need the Government to step up and invest more into brain tumour research so that we can give new hope to patients like Archie in the future.”
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