BENGALURU: Most would consider a nose bleed to be a result of excessive heat and ignore the problem till it stops on its own. But in the case of 16-year-old Niraj (name changed), from Tirupati, what was thought to be an innocent nose bleed turned out to be juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma, a benign tumour that arises in adolescent males. Doctors he visited declared the tumour to be inoperable as it was 12x15 cm long but thanks to city doctors at Columbia Asia hospital, Hebbal, Niraj is now tumour-free and will resume college in a few days. 

Niraj first suffered from nose bleeds and headaches a year ago. Despite visiting several doctors, no tumour was detected. Benign tumours are non-cancerous and this one affected Niraj’s vision, where he lost vision his left eye completely and almost lost vision in his right eye. After an MRI scan, Niraj was diagnosed with a bilateral tumour. “His condition was complex. The tumour was present in both sides of his nose, went up the throat and reached his brain, which caused pressure on his optic nerve, resulting in loss of vision. It is an extremely rare occurence,” explained Dr Avinash M, senior consultant neurosurgery, Columbia Asia Hospital.

Given the size of the tumour, an open split face surgery seemed to be the only option. But the doctors decided against it as it would leave his face disfigured. Instead, the team removed the tumour endoscopically.  “Two surgeries were performed. In the first one, blood supply to the tumour was cut, followed by removal of tumour. With the help of an endoscope through his nose, we removed the tumour. There was bleeding, so we did embolization or blocking of the feeding artery and then did the removal of the tumour. He then regained vision in his right eye,” said Dr Santosh, consultant ENT, Columbia Asia Hospital.