Doctors Remove 18-Pound Tumor From Woman's Abdomen
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Doctors in Mumbai, India removed a cancerous tumor from the abdomen of a 62-year-old woman that had grown so large she couldn’t even see her feet, DNA India reported on its Web Site.
Satyavati Sawant was suffering from a rare form of cancer called leiomyosarcoma, but admits she waited almost two years before seeking proper treatment. Leiomyosarcoma is a cancer of the smooth muscle cells found in the stomach, uterus and intestines.
The delay in treatment caused the tumor to grow to almost 18 pounds.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I was very scared," said Sawant." I had approached Nair, KEM and Tata Memorial hospitals earlier, but when they mentioned a major surgery, I got frightened."
Last month, doctors noticed that the tumor had filled Sawant’s entire abdominal cavity and wrapped itself around the arteries that supply blood to the small intestine.
"Surgery is the first and often the only line of treatment for such cases," said Dr. Amit Gandhi, a cancer surgeon at Bombay Hospital.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}On Saturday, a team of surgeons at Bombay Hospital led by Dr. Gandhi performed the risky eight-hour surgery to remove the tumor from Sawant’s small intestine.
"It was a particularly complicated surgery. A three-dimensional CT scan revealed that the tumor was very close to the Superior Mesenteric Artery (SMA), which is the main source of blood supply to the small bowel," said Gandhi.