A 48-year-old woman from Rohtak has received a fresh lease of life after undergoing an over 12-hour-long rare surgery for removal of a malignant neck tumour at a city hospital.
At a press conference here today, the Fortis Hospital claimed the operation was a "first of its kind" in north India.
Bimla Devi was brought to the Fortis Hospital at Shalimar Bagh in a state of "complete weakness" and was being fed through an external apparatus as she had extreme trouble swallowing and breathing, doctors said.
"An endoscopy and biopsy were performed proving the presence of a squamous cell carcinoma in the laryngeal region. The tumour was cylindrical in shape and weighed about 160-170 gms.
"After reviewing her case, we decided to perform a total laryngopharyngectomy and reconstruction of pharyngeal tube with a free jejunal flap. Post the surgery the patient was kept on ventilator support for two days," said Dr Surender Dabas, Director (Head, Neck and Thoracic Surgical Oncology) at the hospital.
A total laryngopharyngectomy is the removal of the entire voice box and the pharynx.
"In free jejunal flap, a small section of the jejunum (middle segment of the small intestine found between the duodenum and the ileum) is cut out and sutured in the oesophegal region to let her ingest food. Since, in Bimla's case, it was a post-cricoid carcinoma, her food pipe and windpipe that were affected, were removed," he said.
A senior official of the hospital said, the surgery was conducted on August 14.
"She is stable and kept under observation in the HDU (high-dependency unit). She would be discharged in a few days," he said.
Bimla's husband Mehtab Singh said she was earlier treated at a hospital in Rohtak before being brought to Fortis facility in Delhi.
Doctors at the Fortis Hospital said another cancer patient, 50-year-old Mukesh Devi, also recently underwent a life-saving surgery for removal of a nearly 560 gm dumbbell- shaped malignant tumour in her neck.
"In her (Mukesh's) case, the surgery was fraught with risk, so we took consent of the family before operating. She had been operated four times before for the tumour at various hospitals in Delhi, but to no avail.
"The tumour was arising from a cranial nerve and had its roots extending to the skull base, tonsil and behind the food pipe. The surgery (on August 16) lasted 6 hours and the patient was kept in the ICU for a day, and was discharged on the fourth day after the surgery," Dabas told reporters.
Mukesh would now need radiation therapy to prevent recurrence of malignancy and speech therapy to get her voice restored to normal, he said.
"This was a complete removal of the tumour, unlike the operations she had undergone before. So, a chance of recurrence of cancer is very little. Also, in 70 per cent of such cases it doesn't recur," he added.
Head and neck cancers account for more than 5.5 lakh of the total cancer cases reported in India every year, putting India in the sixth place worldwide, the hospital said.
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