Indian Doctors remove 15-kg ovarian tumour from American lady

New Delhi, Apr 3: In a rare surgery fraught with extraordinary multiple risks, a team of doctors at a city hospital successfully removed a 15-kg ovarian tumour from a 50-year-old American woman living in India.

"Since the size of the tumour was so big and major organs were suppressed, conducting surgery was challenging indeed," said Dr Sudhir Kumar Rawal, Head of Surgical Oncology at Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Center.

For Ani Catrin Oro, life has a different meaning now. She feels lighter not only in weight, but also mentally. The surgery has brought her weight down to 70 kg from 85 kg, she weighed before she underwent the critical operation.

"She was suffering from a rare ovarian tumour. After the initial diagnosis, we decided to operate upon her, which was successful. It was a critical operation, but the expertise of doctors ensured that everything went well," informed Dr Rawal.

The Compact Tomography (CT) scan done on her showed a huge abdominal-pelvic mass originating from the right adnexal region near the ovarian origin.

"The uterus and the urinary bladder cannot be seen separately. Her diagnosis was made as huge ovarian tumour and the only treatment was surgery," said Dr Rawal.

"All her organs were badly suppressed with pressure from the tumour. Ani was on heavy anticoagulant as she also developed Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) due to the heavy tumour and lot of blood clotting in the veins were leading her towards developing pulmonary embolism. It was a challenge to prevent the clots from breaking during surgery."

"The involvement of multiple organs due to the large size of the tumour was also a huge challenge as large intestine was hugely pressed because of the weight. It was a malignant tumour and to remove the mass, one ovary, uterus and part of large intestine in order to protect the further spreading of tumour through infected parts," explained the doctor.

Ani, who lived in Rishikesh and went all over India with a giant belly pursuing yoga and other therapies finally landed at the hospital in January.

Initial diagnosis and tests were suggestive of the presence of a big tumour in her abdomen. She was admitted at the hospital on March 14 and after putting her under observation for nearly 15 days, she was operated on March 25.

The operation lasted for nearly five hours.

"In such cases, operation is the only way out to save the life of the patient. We have conducted nearly 50 such operations successfully at the RGCI so far. The success rate is quite high," said Dr Rawal.

Ani developed the tumour five years back which slowly increased to a mammoth size of 15-kg and her belly swelled two times more than the actual size.

"For several months, I suffered severe abdomen pain, had problems in breathing, lying down, eating, urinating, passing and even of late standing.

"The discomfort increased so much that it was not even possible to sit crossed leg for long. I came to the hospital on the advice of a friend and met Dr Rawal, who finally treated me," said Ani.

PTI