Four-month-old baby battles kidney cancer successfully

Ahmedabad, July 30 (UNI) In a rare case, a four-month-old baby was operated upon to remove a cancerous tumour in a hospital here.

The baby had a Wilm's tumour, a type of kidney cancer, said Dr Anirudh Shah, who conducted the operation.

''It was the mother's massage that had helped detect cancer in the baby,'' he said.

The baby, Sania (name changed) had showed no outward signs of cancer like weight loss or less feeding, but her mother had felt the presence of a bulge in her abdomen while giving her daily massage and bath. Upon examination, the doctor found that the baby had Wilm's tumour, a type of kidney cancer.

''It was a tumour weighing 350 gms and 15X10 cm in dimension. As the cancer was at stage one, we decided to remove the kidney completely by surgery,'' said Dr Shah.

He said apart from the swelling, which is painless, other symptoms of the cancer could be blood in the child's urine, or the blood pressure may be raised. The child may also have a high temperature (fever), upset stomach, weight loss, or a lack of appetite. But Sania had shown no such signs, he stressed.

She is now doing absolutely fine, he added.

Though this type of cancer is fairly common like leukemia, but this case was rare as the baby was very small, he added. ''Most cases of Wilm's tumor can be found after the child is one and half or two years of age,'' he added.

The tumor which was first described by Dr Max Wilm, a German doctor, more than 100 years ago, is found to be increasing in incidence these days, he said. ''It could be because of industrial pollution or for defective genes especially the 11th pair of chromosomes,'' the doctor said.

If detected early, the cancer is cent per cent curable, he added.

''If the cancer has not spread to other parts, then its easy to stamp it out by removing the kidney or through chemotherapy.

Otherwise, in bilateral cases, where both the kidneys are affected, things are complicated. A transplant may be required too in that case,'' he said.

For Sania's parents, it had been a testing time.''They had their child after several years of marriage. She had been concieved through invitro fertilisation or test tube,'' the doctor said.

Now, the baby is as normal as ever and will be discharged from hospital today.

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