Fortis Doctors Succeed in High-Risk Tumor Surgery

Recently, Fortis Memorial Research Institute in Gurugram has managed to grab the eyeballs for yet another remarkable achievement. It has been reported that a massive 16.7-kilogram, 58×50 centimetre non-cancerous tumour was successfully removed from the back of a 27-year-old man by a team of experts at Fortis Memorial Research Institute, in Gurugram. The patient, who originates from the Pacific Islands, had been dealing with this enormous tumour since 2008.

The team who took on this challenging case was led by Dr. Niranjan Naik, Senior Director, and Dr. Sushil Kumar Jain, Additional Director of Surgical Oncology at Fortis Memorial Research Institute.

It is also reported that since the tumour was quite large and intricate, several hospitals throughout the world had refused to perform surgery on it due to its high risk. However, the physicians at Fortis Gurugram made this near impossible task possible and decided to go for the surgery after doing a careful assessment of the patient.

The surgery involved two major procedures in which 11 significant blood vessels had to be blocked in order to reduce the possibility of severe bleeding after the tumour was removed.

After surgery, the patient’s whole back was covered by the tumour, which had several huge venous and arterial channels. Approximately 18% of the body’s surface remained raw. To overcome this situation, thinking something beyond the box was extremely essential at that point. Hence, to deal with this, the surgeons chose to use skin from the tumour itself which was non-cancerous, rather than employing the customary skin grafting procedure.

This non-traditional approach allowed the skin graft obtained from the tumour to cover the whole back of the patient. The patient was then discharged four days later in a stable condition after the gruelling ten-hour treatment, demonstrating the team’s proficiency and effectiveness.

Explaining the details of the case, Dr. Niranjan Naik said, “Giant neurofibroma is a type of peripheral nerve tumor that forms soft bumps on or under the skin which can grow to very large size gradually over a longer period. Main cause for this tumor occurrence is genetic abnormalities.

These tumors can hamper the quality of life of the patient by restricting mobility, causing cosmetic disfigurement, discomfort or pain and occasionally heavy bleeding due to bed sore formation. A small percentage of these tumors can become cancerous or malignant and start spreading to other parts of the body. These tumors are very vascular in nature, containing large pools of blood in most of the areas.

That is why the surgery of such tumors have a very high risk of uncontrollable bleeding. Proximity to adjacent vital organs and the need for a huge area to cover the defect after surgery make it even more challenging. These types of surgeries require orchestrated teamwork with complex preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative management strategies involving a multi-disciplinary approach. In this case, as the tumor was non-cancerous, the patient is disease-free now and will have a good quality long-term survival.” (Source: Medical Dialogues)

Mahipal Singh Bhanot, who is the Business Head of Fortis Hospital Gurugram, conveyed his appreciation to the interdisciplinary team for their excellent handling of this difficult case. He further emphasized that to achieve successful results in challenging medical situations, collaboration across different specialties is essential.