Tanzanian man gets surgery to remove huge tumour

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 6

It is a big relief for 32-year-old Omar Salim from Tanzania from the year-long gruelling abdominal pain he suffered due to a rare gastro intestinal stromal tumour (GIST), said to be five times bigger than the normal tumours.

All thanks to doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH) here as they in a rare surgery on Omar, who was discharged today from the hospital, successfully removed a large rectal GIST (24 x 13 cm in size and weighing 1.9 kg) along with a liver lesion (15x14 cm in size and weighing 1.2 kg) despite several challenges.

Head of the operating team, Dr Vivek Mangla (consultant gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary surgeon), SGRH, said there were many challenges in the case and a simultaneous surgery for the complete removal of both the tumours in one go was deemed the best option in the given situation.

“It was decided to first remove the liver lesion to create some working space in the abdomen to facilitate the more complex part of removal of the rectal mass which was bigger and located in a more difficult to access location,” Dr Vivek said.

“Tumours in most of the cases of rectal GIST reported previously were smaller than 5 cm in size while the size of the tumour in this patient was nearly five times of that. These tumours tend to be very vascular and surgery for these entails the risk of major blood loss,” Dr Vivek said.

After a failed surgery in his country, Omar reported at SGRH during last October.