Six-Month-Old Boy Fights Rare Cancer in Russia
A six-month-old boy from Nizhny Tagil, Russia, has been diagnosed with stage 4 malignant rhabdoid tumor, and his family is seeking treatment in Israel.
Oct 10, 2026 0
Nikolai and Natalya Bakhmetev have three children — and the family urgently needs help.
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Little Sasha Bakhmetev from Nizhny Tagil is only six months old, and he has already undergone five courses of radiation and chemotherapy. At two months, the boy was found to have metastases, and further examination confirmed a terrible diagnosis: «Malignant rhabdoid tumor of the retroperitoneal space, stage 4.»
The boy was only a few weeks old when tumors appeared on his body.
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Now the large family needs help — hope for the baby«s salvation was given at an Israeli clinic, but for the Ural residents, the expenses are unaffordable.
Realizing that the local clinic could not help, the parents insisted on a referral to Yekaterinburg.
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The first ultrasound was done only at two months
The parents are asking Sverdlovsk residents for help: a large family cannot afford such expensive treatment alone.
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The Bakhmetev couple works at Uralvagonzavod (Ural Railway Car Building Plant): Nikolai is a repairman, and Natalya is a crane operator, but she is currently on maternity leave. The family has three children in total. The eldest son is nine years old, the daughter is three, and the youngest, Sasha, was born on February 6, 2026.
Soon after discharge, the baby became restless, and lumps appeared under his skin.
Natalya tried to draw the pediatrician«s attention to Sasha»s condition and asked for an ultrasound as soon as possible, but the doctors were in no hurry, although usually the first examination of newborns is done at one month as part of mandatory infant medical screening.
«One lump was on the left leg, the second started growing in the groin,» Nikolai Bakhmetev, the baby«s father, told E1.RU. »At first they were small, but by about one and a half months, the lump on the leg became the size of a grape and started turning blue, and the tumor in the groin by two months resembled a walnut in size. A little later, tumors appeared on the back of the head and abdomen.«
At two months, Sasha had an ultrasound at the local hospital and was diagnosed with «hemangioma.» The doctors told the parents that everything would go away, they just needed to wait.
A hemangioma is a benign tumor that appears due to the growth of vascular wall cells and is common in children under one year old.
«We already started fighting, going to all the hospitals, asking to be taken somewhere, referred for examination,» Nikolai continued. «All this time no one said it was cancer, everyone kept saying one thing: we need to wait.»
The parents fought to get the child referred for examination in Yekaterinburg, specifically to the Regional Children«s Hospital. There, Sasha was immediately hospitalized in the surgery department, and two days later — in oncology.
«My wife didn»t even spend five minutes in the doctor«s office; she and her son were urgently hospitalized,» the child«s father noted.
One of the tumors on the leg was removed and sent for biopsy to establish an accurate diagnosis and understand the cause of the cancer, including whether the disease has a genetic nature. At the same time, Sasha«s condition sharply worsened. He ended up in intensive care and spent a month and a half on artificial ventilation. The child»s liver began to fail.
Almost no chances
The full diagnosis of the baby is: «Malignant rhabdoid tumor of the retroperitoneal space, stage 4, multiple metastases in the liver, subcutaneous metastases, metastases in the lungs, vertebrae, cervical lymph nodes.»
Rhabdoid tumor is a rare aggressive malignant neoplasm that most often occurs in children under three years old. The disease is usually based on a mutation of the SMARCB1 (INI1) tumor suppressor gene.
In Yekaterinburg, Sasha has already undergone five courses of radiation and chemotherapy — the metastases are shrinking, but very slowly. Natalya is still in the hospital with her son.
The parents turned to an Israeli clinic, where they are ready to take the child, but just the initial examination abroad costs 50 thousand dollars.
Currently, the family is obtaining foreign passports.
«As soon as the documents are ready, we buy tickets and fly there. I will stay with the children in Nizhny Tagil, my wife will fly to Israel with Sasha,» said Nikolai Bakhmetev.
The Bakhmetevs announced a fundraiser for treatment on their social media pages, and they also published an ad in the corporate newspaper of Uralvagonzavod.
Nikolai appealed to his management for help and plans to reach out to other enterprises and the city administration. One company, JSC «KhZ »Planta«», has already responded and allocated 50 thousand rubles (about $625 at current rates) to the family to save their son.
Neighbors and relatives are also helping the family, but it is not enough. Preliminarily, the Bakhmetevs need to raise 250 thousand dollars, and this is not the final sum, because in Israel they will have to pay for housing and food. That is why the parents decided to involve the media.
«My son has already been through a lot: a month and a half on a ventilator, five blocks of chemo,» Natalya Bakhmeteva appealed to the Ural residents. «In Russia they tell us there is no chance — even if he is cured, he won»t live long. So we applied to Israel to get treatment there, to give us a chance. And we ask you to help us.«
Residents of Sverdlovsk Oblast often fly to Israel to receive quality cancer treatment. For example, we told the story of a two-year-old girl from Yekaterinburg who is battling aggressive brain cancer. Another Ural baby has a malignant tumor of the eye orbit.
Earlier, a Ural doctor explained which children have the highest risk of developing cancer.
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