(MENAFN- AFP) Five-year-old British brain tumour patient Ashya King is feeling better after 30 sessions of proton therapy in Prague and is heading back to Spain, his doctor said Friday.
Sitting in a wheelchair, clutching a silver toy Porsche 911, Ashya waved to reporters outside the Czech capital's Proton Therapy Centre on Friday before being taken by ambulance to another Prague hospital where he is staying.
"His condition improved during the therapy and now he can eat on his own, he can sit up, play, respond to questions, laugh, (and) take a few steps," said Jiri Kubes, head physician at the centre, which accepted Ashya in a frail state in September.
"The treatment went well, without any complications," he said, adding that the boy will now undergo further treatment, possibly chemotherapy, in Spain where his family owns a house.
King's case made headlines after his parents removed him from a hospital in Britain in August against doctors' wishes, sparking an international manhunt.
Ashya arrived in Prague on September 8 from Spain where his parents had taken him after whisking him away from Southampton General Hospital in England because they feared that traditional radiotherapy would damage his brain.
Touted as more precise than conventional radiotherapy, proton beam therapy targets only malignant cells in a highly precise manner and is not available in Britain.
"Fair enough, he's lost a little bit of hair and he's got some redness there, but it's the only side effects that he's had," Ashya's father said Friday.
During the first 13 sessions, the proton beam targeted a broader area including the spinal cord to prevent the tumour from spreading. The next 17 sessions were focussed on the tumour itself.
"He's not on the feed any more, he's not on any medication. He can travel quite freely, so we're going (to Malaga in Spain) on a commercial airline, we have two seats in case he gets tired," he said.
The family were planning to travel on Sunday.
"After the therapy in Spain is finished, we must wait. But with each year without recurrences, the chance (of full recovery) will be higher and higher," Kubes said, pegging the chances at 70 percent.
- Not feeling safe -
Previously, the boy's parents had been taken into custody in Spain on an international warrant, after British authorities suspected they were not acting in the best interests of the child.
But after the couple spent four days in a Spanish prison, a British court reunited them with their son in a Spanish hospital and allowed them to travel to Prague for the treatment.
The case received substantial coverage in the British media, with public opinion shifting from outrage to sympathy for the parents.
British prosecutors have dropped the case against them after acknowledging that Ashya had been properly cared for.
Brett King said the family did not feel like returning to England right now.
"We don't feel a hundred percent safe at the moment about going to England. For the time being, we just want to go back to Spain, relax, get this treatment under way that Ashya's got to have," he said.
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