THE dad of a five-year-old city pupil who is battling a rare form of cancer has said he is “absolutely buzzing” after a successful round of chemotherapy.

Oscar Saxelby-Lee, a pupil at Pitmaston Primary, is still in desperate need of a stem cell donor as he continues to fight T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia – but he is now finally responding to treatment.

Thousands of people have been swabbed and registered at events across the city to find a tissue match for Oscar, but he needs to be almost cancer free first for a transplant to work.

On Thursday, after three failed rounds of treatment, parents Jamie Lee and Olivia Saxelby were told their son’s level of leukaemia cells had been drastically reduced.

Jamie, 26, said: “Absolutely buzzing with today’s MRD results. Oscar was 30 per cent high risk when he was first diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia T-cell.

“He’s done three rounds of different chemo and unfortunately that percentage didn’t change which meant the chemo wasn’t doing anything to our little warrior.

“We were told Oscar needs to be 0.5 per cent to go in to transplant, so they put Oscar on a really high intense chemo for a week.

“Oscar was a true warrior and was fighting all of the side effects that comes with this chemo.

“It felt like it would be impossible to get it down to that 0.5 per cent but Oscar did it.

Mummy and daddy are so proud of you, Bear, and we love you so much.”

The couple, of McIntyre Road, Worcester, found out Oscar had the rare form of leukaemia on December 28 last year.

Prior to this week, Oscar had already endured four weeks of intensive chemotherapy and more than 20 blood transfusions, before doctors at Birmingham Children’s Hospital determined his illness is so aggressive that a donor must be found – and fast.

Following events at Pitmaston, the Guildhall and the University of Worcester, thousands has been raised for charity DKMS, which tests swabs for viability.

If you are aged between 17 and 55 and haven’t already registered, you can get a kit at dkms.org.uk/en/register-now