A “fit and healthy” man was given the devastating diagnosis that he had an inoperable brain tumor — and his only symptom was that he would randomly smell “sweet caramel.”
Costa Fantis, 57, would randomly smell something sweet, his son, Antonio, said, according to Daily Mail. “His sense of smell changed and he kept getting this strange sweet caramel smell. We didn’t think much of it. We definitely didn’t know it was a symptom of something so serious.”
Antonio shared that his father, a chip shop owner who hails from the English town of Stoke-on-Trent, would smell the “sweet smell” sporadically: “On the odd occasion he would have a caramel smell … it would happen very quickly, and once a month or so.”
Antonio Fantis / SWNS
Costa Fantis with his wife Christella.
Since his father struggled with epilepsy as a child, Antonio explains that “we told him to have a scan and said it’s probably going to be in relation to the epilepsy. We weren’t really thinking anything of it at all, as he was a really fit and healthy man.”
When Costa underwent tests in April 2024, the family was given bleak, unexpected news: He had stage 4 IDH-wildtype glioblastoma. “There’s no cure for glioblastoma,” the Mayo Clinic explains. “Treatments might slow cancer growth and reduce symptoms.” And as the National Library of Medicine says, IDH-Wildtype [glioblastoma] — which Costa has — is “an incurable disease with poor survival.”
Antonio explains that the family was “worried, scared, nervous — but then, still trying to get to grips with the situation and what was going on because he had no symptoms” apart from the smell. “It’s really bizarre because symptoms-wise he didn’t have much at all,” Antonio told the outlet.
Phantom smells — like what Costa experienced with the caramel scent — is known as phantosmia, and can, rarely, be a sign of a brain tumor.
Antonio Fantis / SWNS
Costa Fantis had no symptoms other than smelling phantom odors.
“It just kind of proves that you can be a fit and healthy man yet still have something wrong with you,” Antonio tells the outlet, sharing that his father has undergone chemotherapy and radiation for the tumor — but is now looking for alternative treatments, as “in the last 20 years the treatments haven’t changed for glioblastomas.”
“It’s quite a scary thing to be diagnosed with,” Antonio says, sharing his family has been told, “just enjoy your life, in the most harrowing way possible.”
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