A little boy battling cancer is facing a race against time to get pioneering treatment.

Felix White, five, has an aggressive form of the disease.

However there is a trial treatment available in the US that could help him.

His parents have now launched an Appeal for Felix which is raising money towards the costs of travelling overseas.

However Felix needs to start the treatment by early June if he is to get the most benefit from it.

Family, friends and supporters have been rallying around to help but Felix's parents are now stepping up their fight by lobbying MPs, the NHS and drug companies to help him.

Felix, from Hove, was diagnosed with a stage four neuroblastoma on Valentine’s Day 2009.

The tumour started on the adrenal gland in his abdomen, and spread to his spine, part of his skull and bone marrow.

He has had more than a year of intensive treatment including 18 rounds of chemotherapy, a major operation, radiotherapy and a stem cell transplant.

The antibody trial treatment he needs has helped children in he US but is not currently available in the UK.

Felix's parents Matt, 44, and Colleen, 40 are trying to get him accepted on to a trial in America but he is not eligible at the moment.

This is because the treatment is only being offered to patients who have been diagnosed within the last nine months.

Mrs White, a marketing consultant, said: “It is devastating.

“As parents all we want to do is nurture him through this illness and keep our family together.

“Instead, we find ourselves in this very upsetting battle to get him the right medicine, drugs that we know will work.

“The NHS has been brilliant so far, but why we can’t get access to these drugs is baffling.”

Mr White, a management consultant, says Felix, who has a twin brother Elliot, and older sister Grace, seven, has been coping remarkably well.

He said: “We are told he needs to start it within 100 days of having his bone marrow transplant and we will reach that in June which is why we are stepping things up now.

“We will do whatever it takes.”

Family friend Sara Sims, 40, a self employed reflexologist and massage therapist whose son Ashley is friends with Felix, has decided to run the Brighton Marathon to help raise funds.

She said: “I wanted to do something to help him as I felt so helpless when I found out about how much he had been through.”

To support the family, visit www.appeal4felix.com