World's largest brain tumour removed

In a medical feat, a team from the civic-run BYL Nair Charitable Hospital and Topiwala Medical College has removed a brain tumour  from a 31-year-old man, weighing over 1.8 kgs, creating a record.

Santlal Pal (31), who hails Uttar Pradesh, was brought to Mumbai after hospitals in Varanasi and Allahabad refused to admit him claiming that the surgery was too risky.

"On examination, we found he had a firm scalp swelling measuring 30 x 30 x 20 cms. It appeared there was another head mounted on top of the patient's head. The scalp vessels were tortuous and dilated. The patient was blind," said Dr Trimurti D Nadkarni, Professor and Head of Neurosurgery, Nair Hospital.

A series of CT angiography, CT scan and MRI showed that the blood vessels in the patient's brain had grown into the tumour, providing fresh blood supply to tumour cells. The surgery was conducted on 14 February. Pal required 11 bottles of blood during the nearly six-hour-long surgery. The biopsy report on the tumour is awaited.

The tumour weighed 1.873 kgs and it is the largest tumour of brain to be removed so far, Dr Nadkarni said. The weight of similar case reported earlier was 1.4 kgs.

Nair Hospital Dean Dr Ramesh Bharmal added proudly that "the hospital is well-equipped to manage such complex cases and yield results at par with the best healthcare facilities anywhere".