Bowel cancer patient 19-year-old Stephen Sutton, who has raised £3.2m for the Teenage Cancer Trust, has been moved to respond to tweets from donors complaining they have been “duped”, as he recovers enough to be able to leave hospital.

Messages sent to the teenager included some people saying they deserved a refund and expressing doubts about the authenticity of the Sutton’s story and his sudden recovery.

The teenager responded to a tweet, sent from a now deleted account, saying: “Sorry to disappoint you! So you know, I still have my cancer and it's still incurable, if that makes you feel less 'duped' x”.

Yesterday Sutton elaborated on this message in a series of tweets. He wrote: “RE the troll tweet I replied to yesterday, I really didn't expect the response to get so much exposure.

“I just gave a quick response, thought nothing of it and was (and still am) completely unaffected by it.

“Trolls and cynics exist. It's a shame. But just try not to retaliate too aggressively or get too riled...

“..Like I've said before: On the whole people are 'good', lets concentrate on that :).”

Among other messages sent to the teenager, one person tweeted: “I must be a cynic to not believe #stephensstory in its entirety.”

While another wrote: “#stephensstory err... I’d like refund please?”

Sutton received mass media attention after posting what he though was a final goodbye message on Facebook which went viral.

His JustGiving account started receiving huge numbers of donations for the Teenage Cancer Trust and so far he has raised £3.2m for the Teenage Cancer Trust, £1m of which was raised in just two days.

The teenager was discharged from hospital last week. On his Facebook account he wrote: “The recovery I've undergone recently is quite remarkable. It has been difficult, there is an emotional trauma attached to nearly dying (a few times) that will take a while to get used to, but ultimately I now feel even more fortunate to just be here and the experience serves as a potent reminder to go out there and live life as freely and as positively as possible.”

Coinciding with the media attention surrounding Sutton's illness, the Department of Health has awarded funding for a new 18 month long research project run by the University of Essex and Bowel Cancer UK.

The research, which will commence in July 2014, will lead to the development of a new clinical decision aid tool which is aimed at speeding up the diagnosis of bowel cancer and bowel disease in patients under the age of 50.