Woman thinks it’s weight gain, turns out to be giant tumour

A giant tumour of 4.9 kg — close to the weight of a pair of twins —was removed from the uterus of a 49-year old woman in Kochi, reports Jaya Shroff Bhalla.

A giant tumour of 4.9 kg — close to the weight of a pair of twins —was removed from the uterus of a 49-year old woman in Kochi.

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A team of surgeons from Sunrise Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS) in Kochi led by laparoscopic surgeon Dr. Hafeez Rahman removed the tumour from Meena Kumari’s abdomen, using keyhole surgery, which is a minimalist invasive procedure. The uterus was removed in a record 28 minutes with minimal blood loss.

Kumari, a Kochi resident and a bank employee, had associated the growing tumour in her body to weight gain.
But, when Kumari failed to pin down the reason for her sudden and abnormal weight gain, she approached her local physician, who referred her to SIMS, where the tumour was removed.

“These are very slow growing tumours which usually take about 6-7 months or sometimes more to grow this size,” said Dr Rahman, speaking on the phone to HT. “This kind of uterus in a woman’s abdomen is really rare. It was a non-cancerous tumour, hence there were no manifestations of pains or discharges.”

According to the Guinness Book of World Record, the world’s biggest uterus operated so far weighing 3.22 kg was removed in October last year.

“This 4.9 kg tumour is perhaps the heaviest uterus removed so far. We are sending the details of the tumour for entry into the Guinness as well as Limca Book of World Records,” said Dr Rahman.

On April 16, this year Dr Vivek Marwah, chief of gynnae-endoscopic unit at Sir Gangaram Hospital in Delhi had removed a 3.99 kg tumour from a uterus.

“Technology is advancing and very big tumours can be easily removed. Earlier for very big incisions running almost across the abdominal space had to be made to remove big size growths,” said Dr Marwah.