8kg tumour removed from woman’s abdomen

KOLKATA: A gigantic tumour weighing 8kg and about 10-12 inches in diameter was extracted from a 57-year-old woman’s abdomen on Thursday.

The tumour had been growing over the last four years and had covered almost the entire abdomen making it difficult for the patient to digest food. A CT scan revealed the tumour, but surgeons were left stunned by its actual size that couldn’t be gauged from the scan. They said tumours of this size was rare.

Purnima Saha, a resident of Katwa in Murshidabad, had consulted doctors at CMRI Hospital a few months ago. She had abdominal pain and complained that her stomach felt heavy. CMRI gastro-surgeon Ajay Mandal said, “We detected a tumour and decided on a surgery. But we had no idea that it was so big.” He was part of a four-member surgical team that included gastro-surgeon Sanjay De Bakshi.

The tumour originated in the ‘sigmoid colon mesentery’ region and spread across the whole abdomen. Called ‘licoma’ in medical parlance, it is formed out of fat cells and is not cancerous.

“It was not life-threatening, but would have slowly made it impossible for her to eat and digest,” Mandal said. The surgery was two-hour long. Saha will be discharged on Saturday. Doctors, however, warned that such tumours could recur. “It is not impossible for her to have another tumour. But one of this size is unlikely,” Mandal said.

“Ovarian tumours often grow very big, but not licoma. This seems to be a unique case,” said consultant Arindam Biswas.