City doctors remove rare tumour

A team of five doctors performed a life-saving surgery on a 36-year-old patient suffering from spinal paraganglioma tumour.

The doctors at the Manipal Hospitals removed what they said was a rare tumour of nerve cells, ‘paraganglioma’, at the lower back, near the spine.

They said the tumour was secreting excess hormone. The patient suffered from recurrent lower backache for a year, besides a considerable drop in weight.

The patient was also on medication for hypertension for several years. Dr Karthik Prabhakar, Consultant, Diabetes and Endocrinology, Manipal Hospitals, said, “This kind of tumours are found in two out of every million people each year. They are the cause of hypertension in less than 0.2% of people.”

Dr Praveen M Ganigi, Consultant, Neurosurgery, Manipal Hospitals, said, “The surgery was conducted in two steps — one from the front and another one from the back of the spine, taking a total of around 10 hours of complex surgery with constant monitoring of vital signs”.