Girl, 8, diagnosed with BREAST CANCER is thought be the youngest person to ever have the disease

An eight-year-old girl has been diagnosed with breast cancer, in what is thought to be the youngest case ever of the disease.

Chrissy Turner, from Utah, discovered a lump on her chest last month. 

'It was about the middle of October she came to us with a lump on her chest and was scared,' her father Troy told ABC4 Utah News.

To her parents' horror, tests revealed she was suffering from a very rare form of breast cancer called secretory carcinoma.

Her mother, Annette, has battled cervical cancer, while her father is a survivor of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, having been diagnosed when she was a baby. 

Speaking about her daughter's shocking diagnosis, Mrs Turner told the TV station: 'I broke down. It's a struggle every day worrying about my family, about my husband and now my baby girl.'

Chrissy will undergo her surgery operation at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, Utah.

In the meantime, friends of the family have started a Go Fund Me campaign to raise money for medical bills while the Turners vow to stay strong for their daughter.

'We're just going to keep fighting,' her mother said. 'Doing everything we can to smile every day and laugh every day and carry our head high and do our best to overcome this.' 

Medical literature describes secretory breast carcinoma as a slow growing breast cancer.

In the past, secretory carcinoma of the breast was described as a ‘juvenile‘ breast carcinoma as it is the most common type of breast carcinoma in children.

It may occur at any age, but is mostly seen in people under the age of 30, according to Stanford University.

It is one of the rarest types of breast carcinomas, accounting for less than 1 per cent of all breast cancers in the US.

While the prognosis is good, it is prone to spreading and recurring again where it first appeared, so must be treated aggressively.