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A Brazilian father who lost his three children to cancer tragically died of the same disease.
Regis Feitosa Mota, 53, and his children learned in 2016 that they all had Li-Fraumeni syndrome, or LFS. Among sufferers, 90 percent of men and 70 percent of women develop cancer during their lifetime.
The economist, from Fortaleza, in the northeast of the country, had already battled cancer three times. But in January of this year, he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer that affects white blood cells.
Eight months later he died, leaving behind his wife Mariella, who said the pain was “indescribable” and that she was sure he would win the disease.
His youngest daughter Beatriz died in 2018, at the age of 10, of leukemia, while his son Pedro died in 2020, at the age of 22, after suffering a brain tumor. Her eldest daughter, Anna Carolina, died at the age of 25 last year after she, too, was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Pictured above is Father Regis Feitosa Mota, from Fortaleza, in northeastern Brazil, with his three children. They have all died of cancer. Beatriz, the youngest, died of leukemia in 2018 at the age of 10. Her son Pedro hers died in 2020 at age 22 of a brain tumor and her daughter Anna Carolina, 25, died of a brain tumor last year. She had previously battled leukemia.
Mota, 53, revealed in January that he had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, or a type of cancer that affects white blood cells. She died eight months after treatment. His wife, Mariella, said that the pain was “indescribable” because she was sure that she would overcome it.
LFS is a condition thought to affect at least one in 20,000 families, and possibly one in 5,000 families.
A total of 50,000 Americans are believed to have the condition according to the National Institutes of Health.
The disease is diagnosed through a genetic test and scientists warn that it can lead to cancer at any time, although it is more likely to occur at a younger age.
Mr Mota’s wife, Mariella Pompeu, said after her husband’s death was revealed: ‘My friends, I never imagined making this publication.
“I never prepared myself for this moment because I was always convinced that Régis would make a full recovery.
‘It is an indescribable pain. The ground has opened up and I don’t know what life would be like without your affection, company and absolute love.’
His brother Rogério Feitosa Mota said: ‘Our warrior went to find his children exactly on Father’s Day.
May God take you, my brother! we love you so much.’
Mota, was diagnosed with cancer three times between 2016 and 2023.
But in January of this year, he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, in which white blood cells begin to divide uncontrollably in the bone marrow, crowding out healthy cells.
At the time, he said: ‘We discovered another disease. We have already treated lymphocytic leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which are now stabilized.
‘But we have been treating them, they are not cured.
“This time, we discovered multiple myeloma, which even affects the bone.”
Mota said on social media last week that he was in the hospital awaiting a bone marrow transplant.
He died in the state of Ceará, Brazil, where Fortaleza is based, on August 13, Father’s Day in the South American country.
His body was cremated on August 14 in the city.
Adults with LFS have a 50 percent chance of giving birth to a child with the same condition, scientists say.
In the photo above is Mr. Mota with his two children, Pedro and Anna Carolina. All three have since died of cancer.