A team of doctors at a Kerala hospital has successfully operated on a five-month-old baby and removed a 9cm complex tumour from the baby’s liver. Authorities at the KIMSHealth hospital, Thiruvananthapuram said the infant recovered well after the surgery and has been discharged.
A medical team at KIMSHealth hospital in Thiruvananthapuram conducted a 12-hour-long rare, complex surgery to remove hepatoblastoma, a rare cancer that forms in the tissues of the liver. A release from the hospital said the tumour was initially detected during an ultrasound scan, when the mother was 33 weeks pregnant, and the infant was delivered via elective C-section at 37 weeks of gestation.
“A subsequent biopsy confirmed the presence of hepatoblastoma, a rare cancer that forms in the tissues of the liver. This condition is predominantly seen in children but rarely occurs in neonates,” it said.
A medical team, led by Dr Naveen Jain, senior consultant, department of neonatology at the hospital decided on a multi-disciplinary treatment for the child and took measures to shrink the tumour prior to surgery. The treatment methodology included chemotherapy and doctors said it was extremely challenging to administer the procedure to an infant.
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Dr. Shabeerali T.U, chief coordinator and senior consultant, department of hepatobiliary, pancreatic and liver transplant surgery said their objective was to reduce the tumour size to make surgical intervention possible. “Despite the challenges of administering chemotherapy to such a young child, the medical team successfully reduced the size of the tumour,” a release said. The hospital had also identified the infant’s mother as a potential donor and advised her mother to undergo lifestyle changes if in case a liver transplant was necessary.
“The twelve-hour long surgery involved the removal of a major portion of the liver, including the vena cava and the main blood vessel supplying blood to the tumour. The child regained health following the surgery and was discharged a month later,” it said.
