Surgeons at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital (MGMGH) in Tiruchi have removed a tumour weighing 1.5 kg from the right lobe of a patient’s liver and saved his life on Monday.
According to an official statement, the patient, a 75-year-old man from Thirunedunkulam, Tiruchi, was admitted with abdominal pain to the medical ward on December 26, 2024. On evaluation, he was found to have a liver mass, and as a result, his case was taken over by the Department of Surgical Gastroenterology on January 1 for further investigations.
A lesion, measuring 15 cm x 10 cm, showing features of Hepatocellular carcinoma was detected on the right lobe of the liver. The surgical team decided to carry out a diagnostic laparoscopy and right hepatectomy (a procedure to remove part or all of the liver) in order to save the patient’s life.
As the tumour was very large, the patient needed to have a major procedure removing up to 60% of liver with the growth, with adequate margins. Since the liver is a vascular organ getting 1,200 ml of blood per minute, the blood vessels had to be meticulously dissected in order to stop the blood flow.
Under the guidance of S. Kumaravel, dean, K.A.P. Viswantham Medical College, MGMGH medical superintendent Udhaya Aruna and deputy superintendent Arun Raj, a surgical team headed by R.R. Kannan, performed the operation that lasted four hours on Monday.
Post-operative care for the patient would include pain and fluid management, liver function monitoring to look for dysfunction, and follow-up imaging to look for tumour recurrence, said the statement.
Published – January 07, 2025 08:40 pm IST
