After his four-year-old daughter, Konika, tripped and fell four months ago, Mahilal Narzary decided to consult a doctor. The Kokrajhar-based road contractor had no idea that she was suffering from a serious ailment. Over time, she became listless and lost the ability to speak.
Doctors in Kokrajhar, Assam, and later, Cooch Behar, West Bengal, told him she needed specialised treatment and referred him to the Apollo Cancer Institute here.
Mr. Narzary travelled with his daughter and wife to Chennai in June. At Apollo, the neurosurgical team diagnosed Konika with extraventricular ependymoma, a rare tumour. She suffered four-five episodes of seizures lasting two to three minutes a day.
“We found that only seven cases had been reported so far from across the world,” said neurosurgeon M. Balamurugan, who led a team of surgeons to remove the tumour.
Challenging surgery
According to him, the surgery was challenging as the tumour occupied half of the left side of the brain, including parts that control speech and the movement of the right part of the body.
The doctors used a new technique called fluorescence-guided surgery in which a fluorescence dye is ingested an hour before surgery. The body absorbs the dye while the tumour cells absorb it in larger quantities. Doctors then used a filter integrated with a microscope to distinguish the tumour.
The dye enhanced the tumour-affected area and the filter enabled the surgeon to excise the tumour without damaging the healthy brain cells.
After the surgery, Konika had to undergo 33 sessions of radiotherapy.
Initially, she was given anaesthesia but soon she began to cooperate, making anaesthesia unnecessary, said R. Rathnadevi, senior consultant radiation oncologist.
The surgery was performed on June 21 and she was discharged six days later. She will be leaving for Assam on August 14.
Initially, her case will be reviewed monthly and depending on her progress, the gap between reviews would increase, doctors said. The five-year survival period is good as she is a child and the tumour had been completely excised, doctors said.
Signs of Konika having recovered were evident when she started blowing soap bubbles, obliged the doctors by repeating her name into the mike and ran around on the dais happily as her father interacted with the media.