HÀ NỘI — Việt Đức Hospital’s Department of Plastic Surgery successfully conducted a surgery to remove part of a 45-kg tumour from a 34-year-old patient.

The tumour had spread to his buttocks, back and almost the entire left thigh. The patient was unable to walk normally and had to crawl because of the tumour.

The patient’s family members from the Nghệ An central province said the tumour developed each year, and the family could not afford to get the patient treated when he was young so the tumour spread gradually.

Sometimes, the tumour would burst, causing bleeding and fainting.

Associate Professor Nguyễn Hồng Hà, head of Plastic Surgery Department, said the patient was hospitalised in poor health due to chronic blood loss. He had to crawl or go about in a wheelchair.

His left femur neck was deformed and broken, Hà said.

The tumour was 1 degree to 2 degrees warmer than the body temperature, as it had a large vascular hyperplasia, leading to high risk of bleeding during surgery.

After examination, the patient was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis.

It was very difficult for doctors to discriminate the tumour from the nerves, because the patient was unable to lie on the magnetic resonance machine for scanning.

He would have been paralysed if the nerves had been cut, the doctors said.

After consultation, the doctors decided to perform the surgery in at least two stages. Cutting off the entire tumour in a single surgery could have endangered the patient’s life, they said.

During the first surgery, the doctors cut off the tumour on the patient’s back and buttocks, weighing 23kg, Dr Đào Văn Giang, a member of the surgical team said.

The remaining tumour would be removed when the patient’s health got better, he said.

The patient was not in active recovery stage yet, but his heart, lung, kidney and liver was being closely monitored, he said.

The patient needed a good antibiotic treatment to prevent infection.

Before performing the surgery, the director of the hospital held a consultation with doctors and experts from the departments of haematology, blood transfusion, dialysis, imaging, anaesthesia , orthopaedic trauma and plastic surgery to examine and propose a long-term treatment for the patient.

More than 10 surgeons and 20 staff and doctors were mobilised to conduct the surgery. —  VNS