Doctors remove giant abdominal tumour bigger than a football weighing 7.5 kg

New Delhi: Doctors here removed a giant 32cm sized abdominal tumour, bigger than a football, weighing 7.5 kgs from a 58-year-old man, giving him a new lease of life.

The Delhi-based man suffered from heaviness and distension (swelling) on the right side of his abdomen, which he noticed only two weeks back.

He was surprisingly fit and had no pain or discomfort in the abdomen, loss of appetite, body weight loss, or weakness.

An investigation by doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital revealed a very large abdominal mass on the right side of the abdomen.

They also reported a large predominantly fat-containing mass with multiple enhancing soft tissue components and septations displacing the right kidney and liver upwards and pancreas and adjacent small intestinal loops towards the extreme left side of the abdomen.

The large intestine was splayed over the mass at its full length. His right ureter was also pushed upwards and towards the left side of the abdomen leading to swelling of the right kidney. This mass was also in very close proximity to the inferior vena cava -- the largest vein that returns the deoxygenated blood from the lower half of the body and abdomen to the heart.

The findings were suggestive of retroperitoneal liposarcoma (a malignant tumour), said the doctors, which the doctors removed in a surgery that lasted for 8 hours.

“The successful surgery lasted for 8 hours. It was a humongous task, we were able to preserve all the vital organs like the right kidney and large intestine by doing meticulous dissection and separating the tumour from the vital structures like duodenum, pancreas, and ureter,” Dr Manish K Gupta, Vice Chairman & Senior Laparoscopic & General Surgeon, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

“The vascular surgery team played the pivotal role in separating the tumour mass from the inferior vena cava which was densely adherent to it, and further handed over to the surgical team for the complete removal of tumour mass,” he added.

“A large retroperitoneal mass of size 37 X 23 X 16 cm weighing 7.5 kgs was taken out and sent for biopsy. Any tumour of more than 30 cm in size comes into the category of giant retroperitoneal mass and is quite rare,” the doctor explained.

The patient was discharged after seven days of surgery and is doing well now, he said.