Justin Bieber attends the 3rd annual Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival at NYU Paulson Auditorium in New York April 27, 2012. — Reuters Photo

WASHINGTON: Teen idol Justin Bieber on Wednesday mourned the death of a six-year-old cancer patient who snagged his heart after she became his make-believe wife.

“One of the greatest spirits I have ever known is gone... RIP Avalanna. I love you,” said Bieber on his Twitter account after the family of Avalanna Routh announced her passing on the microblogging site.

Routh, a native of Merrimac, Massachusetts, was nine months old when she was diagnosed with atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor, or AT/RT, a rare brain disorder that usually kills its victims within a year.

Doctors at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, using a multi-prong therapy regimen that in some cases has overcome the tumor, succeeded in prolonging the child's life.

This June 15, 2010 photograph provided by the Dana Farber Cancer Institute shows Avalanna Routh at the Boston hospital. — AP Photo

In August 2011, the hospital staged a pretend wedding at which Routh, a passionate Bieber fan, became “Mrs Bieber.” Six months later, after a Facebook campaign, Bieber invited her to New York to spend Valentine's Day with him.

She said afterwards how she and her “husband” ate cupcakes and played Candy Land, a children's board game, leaving her parents with the more grown-up task of raising public awareness of her disease.

Only about 30 new cases of AT/RT are diagnosed in the United States every year. Patients have a survival rate of just 10 per cent.

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