Delhi: Huge tumour removed from 18-year-old's thigh after over 9-hour surgery

An 18-year-old man received a new lease of life after undergoing an over nine-hour-long surgery for removal of a huge tumour in his thigh at a city hospital, doctors said Wednesday.

Praveen Kumar Gupta was admitted to the department of orthopaedics at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital on December 26, 2018 with huge swelling in his left thigh, they said.

Examination revealed that there was a huge tumour of 37 cm x 18 cm x 12 cm size, which was affecting the hip and the full length of back of the thigh. The swelling first appeared in 2012 and had increased gradually, a hospital spokesperson said.

Because of the size of the swelling and the excruciating pain it caused Gupta was not able to walk or sit properly. Due to pressure on the nerves and blood vessels, there was weakness and loss of sensation in the limb, doctors said.

The patient approached many hospitals which had advised amputation of the leg, but he was not ready for it, they said.

The challenge was not only to successfully remove this huge tumour but also to save the limb. To overcome this, a medical board was formed consisting of departments of orthopaedics, vascular surgery, plastic surgery and anaesthesiology, the hospital said.

The surgery took nine-and-a-half hours and only one unit of blood was transfused. Patient recovered well after the surgery and started walking with the help of walking aid from third post-operative day, it said in a statement.

"According to the reported literature, this was the largest tumour ever removed from inside a thigh, without compromising the limb. The largest tumour earlier reported was 32 cm x 13.5 cm x 5.5 cm by the University of Miami in 2014," Dr Brajesh Nandan, orthopaedic onco surgeon, who led the surgery, said.

According to Dr Jayashree Sood, chairperson of department of anaesthesiology, pain and perioperative medicine, at the hospital, "This was a challenging case for anaesthesia because it was a long surgery performed in the prone position (lying on abdomen), which has its own problems. Blood loss was anticipated, but managed with meticulous surgical and anaesthetic technique.