Faridabad doctors successfully operate on woman with rare pregnancy-linked condition

GURUGRAM: A 23-year-old woman whose pregnancy seven months back left her with a rare condition that led to disproportionate growth of breast tissue, severely restricting her mobility, was treated at a hospital in Faridabad in December.
Doctors at Amrita Hospital said on Thursday that the woman from a middle-eastern country was diagnosed with bilateral gestational gigantomastia. She developed the condition during a pregnancy, which ended in spontaneous abortion last year.
The incidence of this condition is estimated at around 1 per 100,000 births.
Surgeons who treated the woman said she came to India after several hospitals in her home country told her she would need to first undergo tissue amputation and reconstruction with breast implants at a later stage. This procure was a high-risk one, she was told, with chances of excessive bleeding that could be fatal during the surgery.
According to the doctors, the woman’s breast tissues weighed 11kg and she could barely stand upright for over five minutes. Dr Mohit Sharma, head of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the Faridabad hospital, led the team of doctors that decided to carry out a mastectomy – removal of breast tissues – while using some of the tissue and skin flaps for reconstruction in the same surgery. They also decided on an areola and nipple graft.
The surgery, done on December 18, lasted ten hours.
“We came up with an innovative plan in which we used the skin flaps of the tissues as fillers. The surgery was particularly complex as it was very difficult to stop bleeding. But with our planning and a two-team approach (keeping a team on standby for blood transfusion, if needed), we could minimise blood loss and achieve a result that was satisfactory to the patient,” said Dr Sharma, who operated on the woman along with senior consultants Dr Anil Murarka, Dr Vasundhra Jain and Dr Neha Suri.
The patient is recovering well and is now able to walk without any restrictions, the doctors said. The patient, who wished to remain anonymous, told TOI on Thursday that she was “finally getting better” and hopes to go about her life as normal.