A FOUR-YEAR-OLD girl with a rare form of brain cancer will fly to Germany for controversial proton beam therapy.

Little Amelia Elphee is one of only 30 people in Europe to have been diagnosed with the 'neuroepithelial' brain tumour, with the treatment the next desperate step to fight the disease.

On the week that Amelia turns five she will fly to the overseas clinic, with the £25,000 treatment partly funded by the NHS.

Proton beam therapy was thrown into the spotlight in 2014 when little Ashya King's parents removed the little boy from hospital to take him overseas for the treatment.

Brett and Naghmeh King were arrested after an international manhunt in August 2014 when the NHS refused to fund proton beam therapy treatment - with

UK doctors have now cleared the eight-year-old of his rare brain cancer and say “there is no sign of any tumour recurrences”.

It's a glimmer of hope for the family of little Amelia, who hope the treatment could help save their daughter.

Speaking to the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, mum Vicky said: "When Amelia first suffered a seizure, I thought she may have simply overheated, or that she might have epilepsy.

"Never once did I think I’d be told she had cancer. To hear those words left me dumbstruck, numb. I just couldn’t take it in.

"But Amelia has been an inspiration throughout her treatment. She’s been so strong."

Amelia underwent surgery on June 27, soon after being diagnosed, with surgeons able to remove the entire 2cm tumour in a seven hour operation.

Amelia's family admitted they knew how lucky they were to receive support from the NHS.

Traditional external beam radiotherapy involves blasting cancerous cells with high-energy X-rays to kill them - but it can also damage healthy cells.

But proton beam therapy works by accelerating protons until they reach half the speed of light, and then targeting them at cancer cells with pencil-point precision.

Unlike traditional radiotherapy, it can pin-point the exact area to target, preserving healthy tissue in front of the tumour and preventing damage to the tissue behind it.

But the technology is not currently available in the UK.

Dr Jiri Kubes, medical director at the Proton Therapy Center in Prague, said: "While the NHS acknowledges the benefits of Proton Beam Therapy, and is building its own centres, they will still only be able to treat a fraction of those who might benefit from it, while many people will be turned down for the treatment because of the very limited indication criteria.

“But the general public is becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of Proton Beam Therapy.

“It’s highly effective in treating tumours in extremely sensitive areas of the human body and it has also been proved that proton therapy reduces the risk of secondary cancers by more than half, compared with traditional radiotherapy.”