Indian doctors remove"World's Heaviest Ovarian Tumour"

Coimbatore: Doctors at a Coimbatore-based hospital successfully removed an ovarian cancer tumor weighing 33.5 kg from a woman's stomach which perhaps may be the "world's heaviest tumor".

Vasantha, an agricultural laborer from Tamil Nadu's Ooty, found her stomach was growing rapidly in size. Her first thought was a regular weight gain associated with age, but when the pain and discomfort became unbearable, she decided to visit a local hospital. Local surgeons, after conducting necessary tests, diagnosed ovarian tumor but they refused to undertake a surgery as the chances of survival was meager.

Read Also:New combination of drugs for treatment of ovarian cancer

"Pain was the main cause and it was unbearable. I was not able to walk, not able to have proper food and also suffered from breathlessness. Then I finally decided to visit a doctor," said Vasantha to Deccan Chronicle.

Vasantha's husband was advised to visit Coimbatore hospital. The chief surgeon of the hospital, Dr. Senthil Kumar, investigated the patient and formed a team of doctors to remove the tumor, which he said, turned out to be the heaviest ovarian cancer tumor removed so far in the world.

"When the patient came to us, she weighed 75 kg and the tumor we removed weighed 33.5 kg. The patient is now doing well and weighs around 42 kg," Dr. Kumar told news agency ANI.

Courtesy-ANI

Talking about the procedure they followed, Kumar explained how the tumor was affecting the patient. "We further investigated with more scans and investigations, and we found that it was a very large tumor which was occupying the whole abdomen, and it was also compressing the inferior vena cava which carries the blood from the lower half of the body to the heart, because of the compression, she was having the dilated veins all over the abdomen," he said.

Dr. Kumar informed that so far, the record for the removal of the largest tumor (20 kg) in India was held by AIIMS Delhi and a hospital in Pondicherry. "While heavier ovarian tumors have been removed before, they were benign or non-cancerous in nature. With this surgery, we have created the record of removing world's heaviest ovarian cancer tumor in the world weighing 33.5 kg," he said.

The record has been approved by the Indian book of records and the Asian book of records, the doctor said, adding that they have applied for World Book of Records and the Guinness book of world records.

Talking about the difficulties they faced, Dr. Kumar said, "The main difficulties we faced was in giving her anesthesia and ensuring that there was minimum blood loss during the surgery. A highly competent team and the most sophisticated machines and instruments were used to ensure this."

"Since it was an early stage of cancer, it has not spread in the body through nodes, Vasantha can survive like a normal person," he added.