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A toddler facing a fight for life after being diagnosed with an aggressive cancer has received £40,000 from an anonymous donor.

Three-year-old Kian Musgrove, from Newcastle, is fighting neuroblastoma for the second time and has just weeks to find £500,000 needed for life-saving treatment.

Mum Kat Musgrove, 27, has so far raised more than £285,000 to get little Kian to a specialist hospital in New York and was moved to tears at the kind-hearted donation.

Kat told the Newcastle Chronicle: “We’ve just been told someone - we don’t know who - has deposited £40,000 into Kian’s account."

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“It’s incredible. I can’t thank them enough for what they’ve done," she continued. "So many people are doing things to help him, it’s remarkable.”

Kat says she will not be able to make the trip unless she manages to find the £200,000-plus still needed for the therapy.

“Kian is still undergoing chemotherapy at the minute at Newcastle’s Great North Children’s Hospital,” added Kat. “But we only have a few more weeks to find the money.”

Neuroblastoma is an aggressive childhood cancer which has an 80% chance of returning.

But specialist relapse treatment that could cure Kian is only available abroad.

The North East community has come out in force to help the toddler, with fundraising events raising thousands across the region. But the family know they are in a race against time.

Kian was first diagnosed with stage four neuroblastoma in October 2013. His tiny body was riddled with 27 different tumours.

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The illness first attacked his nerve cells around the kidneys on an adrenal gland where a tumour had developed. It then travelled around his body and spread to his bones and across his pelvis.

Chemotherapy and numerous operations followed, including the removal of a stem cell and subsequent immunotherapy treatment. It took eight months, but eventually Kian’s cancer was no longer detectable to the delight of his family.

Since then Kat, also mum to Katie, four, has worked tirelessly to raise the money towards relapse therapy should her son fall ill again.

In December last year, Kat received the news she had been dreading - the cancer had returned.

Since then Kian has spent much of his time in hospital undergoing treatment. For the second time in his short life, he has been subjected to chemotherapy as doctors fight desperately to clear his body.