Delizia Cirolli: Ewing's Sarcoma Vanishes Months After Lourdes Visit

Delizia Cirolli was 12 years old in 1976 when she developed pain in her right knee. The University Orthopedic Clinic at the University of Catania confirmed Ewing's sarcoma of the upper tibia. Specialists gave her six months to live and recommended amputation, which her family refused. No chemotherapy or radiotherapy was administered.

A community fundraising effort in Paternò sent her to Lourdes in August 1976, but she returned with no observable improvement. Her condition worsened over the following months: she could no longer walk, weighed only 22 kilograms, and was in constant pain. A few days before Christmas 1976, she spontaneously began eating, walking, and recovered fully. She returned to school.

The International Medical Bureau of Lourdes reviewed her case in 1982 and declared it "a completely exceptional event in the strictest sense of the term contrary to all known information in medical experience and hence inexplicable." The Archbishop of Catania recognized it as the 65th Lourdes miracle on July 6, 1989.

The biopsy confirmation and absence of treatment are the strongest features. The delayed recovery after the Lourdes visit — not at the shrine — makes direct attribution less clear than cases where recovery occurred on-site. Ewing's sarcoma spontaneous remission is documented: extremely rare, but the correct natural alternative to name.