Actress Kelley Mack, best known for her roles on “The Walking Dead” and “Chicago Med,» is dead at age 33 after a seven-month battle with an aggressive form of cancer that attacked her central nervous system.
Actress Kelley Mack, best known for her roles on “The Walking Dead” and “Chicago Med,” has died at age 33 after a seven-month battle with an aggressive form of cancer.
In January, the rising star was diagnosed with diffuse midline glioma, a fast-growing tumor that attacks the central nervous system. The illness surfaced just months after she began experiencing pain she believed was from a simple back injury.
Mack, born Kelley Klebenow, “passed peacefully” on August 2 in her hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio, with her mother and aunt by her side, her sister shared in an Instagram post on Tuesday.
Gliomas are considered rare, with just six cases diagnosed per 100,000 people each year in the US.
Still, they are the most common type of tumor that begins in the brain or spinal cord, rather than spreading there from other parts of the body.
Here’s everything you need to know about the potentially life-threatening condition.What is a glioma?
It’s a type of tumor that forms in the brain or spinal cord when glial cells — which normally support and protect neurons — begin to grow uncontrollably, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
There are different types of gliomas, classified by the specific kind of glial cell they originate from. Mack had an astrocytoma, a tumor that develops from astrocytes, the star-shaped glial cells in the brain and spinal cord, according to a blog on health platform Caringbridge about her health journey.
