Sydney Towle has revealed that her cholangiocarcinoma has spread to her peritoneum, even as the 26-year-old content creator continues treatment in an experimental clinical trial. After spending several days in the hospital, she updated followers in emotional TikTok videos that showed her with a nasogastric tube.

Towle said doctors had given her reason to keep pushing ahead, telling her there could be an 80 per cent chance that the laboratory work being done on her tumour could produce immune cells suitable for treatment. “I know that it’s not great right now, but I still have hope,” she said. “You can do a lot of things with hope.”

The update marks another difficult turn for Towle, who was first diagnosed at 23 with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive bile duct cancer. Earlier this year, doctors surgically removed part of one of her tumours so researchers could isolate immune cells from it in a lab, then grow and study them in hopes of developing a personalised cancer treatment. Her latest disclosure shows how far the disease has advanced even as that work continues.

Cholangiocarcinoma develops in the bile ducts and is often difficult to catch early because its symptoms can build slowly or look like other digestive problems. Doctors say spread to the peritoneum, the lining of the abdomen and pelvis, can bring abdominal swelling, pain or pressure, digestive discomfort, nausea and changes in bowel movements. Towle also clarified that she did not have a bowel obstruction, drawing a line between what the cancer has done and what it has not.

That distinction matters because the clinical picture is still changing. Towle is not describing the end of treatment but the next stage of a fight that has already stretched from diagnosis at 23 through surgery, hospital care and an experimental trial built around her own immune system. The lab now has the job of turning cells from her removed tumour into a therapy that might still help.

For Towle, the story is no longer only about what the scans show. It is about whether a personalised approach can keep pace with a cancer that has already proved hard to control, and whether the hope she is holding onto can be translated into something doctors can actually use.