生于击败癌症

马里特·彼得森可能会易于黑色素瘤, but the disease was no match for the 10-year-old and her team.

She was 4 years old when her mother, Candy Peterson, explained her own乳腺癌诊断。马里特乐观的反应：“我们匹配，妈妈！”融化了糖果的心，使她想起了马里特的勇敢精神，这在童年时期看到了她度过了艰难的时期。

达拉斯的马里特（Marit）出生时，手指上有一个小凹凸。儿科医生什么都不认为，但它开始类似于黑色素瘤病变的祖父。糖果遵循她的母亲本能，坚持活检。结果尚无定论，医生建议访问MD Anderson。

彼得森很快见了杰弗里·李（Jeffrey Lee）, chair of Surgical Oncology, who’s become like family to them. Lee diagnosed Marit with stage IIIB metastatic melanoma and started treatment immediately. After外科手术一年的干扰素注射，当时2岁的Marit被认为是幸存者。

“I love Dr. Lee. He saved my life,” Marit says. “He took all of my cancer away, and he’s looking for clues to take the cancer away for everybody.”

Overcome with gratitude and determined to contribute to the fight, the Petersons decided to support Lee’s research into the inherited genome for melanoma. They founded the Marit Peterson Fund for Melanoma Research and started a benefit golf tournament, which in eight years has raised more than $1 million. Lee and his staff attend the Richardson, Texas, tournament every year to provide skin cancer screenings.

“When melanoma gets cured someday, I’ll be really happy,” says Marit. “It’s important to help MD Anderson and Dr. Lee because it takes money to complete the188bet体育网址他们需要使人们变得更好。”

成功只会加强彼得森对机构的承诺。

“足球队中的所有球员都不能完全一样。您需要每个职位上最好的人，这就是MD Anderson所拥有的。” Candy说。“我们有外科医生，皮肤科医生和儿科肿瘤学家共同努力，这使我们的小女孩回来了。”

彼得森的支持促进了基因组引起黑色素瘤的100万变异的基因检测。测试结果已经确定了几种可能增加患疾病风险的基因。

称自己为最好的朋友的Marit和Candy继续“匹配”。两者都是无癌的：六年的糖果，八年的糖果八年。