A tumour the size of a jackfruit and weighing more than a normal newborn baby was removed from the ovary of 49-year-old homemaker from Burdwan. But all was as the tumour was surgically removed at Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals, the patient Barnali Sen was up on her feet within 48 hours and back home in 72 hours after the surgery.
She was all smiles because the surgery, performed by Dr. Jayanta Gupta, director of the obstetrics and gynaecology department of Apollo, was uneventful and her recovery fast even though the tumour, which was a good 4.2kg in weight, was way more than the average body weight of a newborn in India, which varies between 2.6 and 2.8kg, according to gynaecologists.
Barnali, who has two children in their 20s, and her husband, Abhay, a businessman are relieved also because a biopsy report conduced after the surgery conduct in mid-November showed there was no malignancy.
The soon-to-touch-50 woman had been stumped when her abdomen started bloating around three months back. As the size of the tumour increased, externally it seemed more and more like a normal pregnancy.
“There was no pain because of the tumour or any other obvious side effects. Initially, I had thought that I was putting on weight. But as my abdomen kept increasing in size, we went to a doctor and investigations revealed there was tumour growing inside me,” said Barnali, on the day of her discharge after surgery.
“I had been scared when I heard the word tumour. But now my fears are laid to rest. I am very satisfied with the treatment and care during my hospitalisation and am grateful for the fact that I am going home to soon,” she added.
According Dr. Gupta: “The tumour had involved the intestines and some other organs in the abdomen. The sheer size of it made it look like a pregnancy. But luckily for the patient the tumour turned out to be non-malignant and she is on the way to recovery.”
Another doctor of the team said, during surgery for such tumours, in many cases a small incision is made, the tumour dissolved and sucked out. But for Ms. Sen an incision of 12cm was needed because of the size of the tumour and because the surgeons did not want to take chances of tampering with it inside the abdomen given the age of the patient.
