48-year-old with double cancer on recovery road

Ranchi: A 48-year-old person suffering from dual malignancy (two types of cancer simultaneously) has recovered over 50 per cent in three months. A city-based oncologist diagnosed the condition during his first visit to Bhagwan Mahaveer Medica Superspeciality hospital in May. Since he was from economically weaker background, the doctor then ensured his enrolment under Ayushman Bharat scheme for free treatment.
Talking to TOI, senior oncologist at Medica Hospital Dr Gunjesh Kumar said, “Jhabi Mahto visited me in May with a 10 centimetre mass on his neck and had a diagnosed history of parotid cancer. We planned to start his treatment for parotid cancer. But I saw that he had developed large lumps in his both armpits and I decided to run a biopsy of the same.”
The sample collected from Mahto’s armpit lumps tested positive for lung cancer and the patient was diagnosed with dual malignancy, which is a rare find in patients. “Detection of two types of cancer in the same person at the same time is rare and have poor prognosis. The occurrence of multiple primary cancers in different parts of the body is reported to be less than 1%. In case of Mahto, it was important that he gets a good prognosis or else he wouldn’t have survived as then a multi-disciplinary team of doctors would have performed tracheostomy near his neck as he wasn’t able to breath properly,” said he.
Dr Kumar added that the patient was in pain and unable to communicate properly about the history of the lump in his armpits. So the doctors decided to send it for biopsy which led to the discovery of second malignancy.
Mahto underwent three sessions of chemotherapy and is under a targeted therapy programme for next three to four months. However, the recovery in him has given hope to patient as well as doctors. As Mahto comes from an economically weaker background, the doctor himself got him enrolled under Ayushman Bharat scheme and started his treatment at Medica hospital for free.