Docs remove rare cancer from heart of 11-year-old

Raipur: A team of doctors at Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Memorial Hospital in Raipur removed a stage-3 invasive thymic cancer from the heart area of an 11-year-old boy in an exceptionally rare surgery performed around six months ago, with the state-run hospital claiming the case could mark a first in the world in terms of the patient's age.Six months after the surgery, the boy was said to be fully healthy and resumed school. The hospital said the rare case was presented at a national cancer surgery conference, where it received a best paper award, and preparations were underway to submit it to an international medical journal.Hospital authorities said medical literature so far recorded a 12-year-old as the youngest reported patient with this type of cancer, while the Raipur team operated on an 11-year-old boy from Janjgir-Champa district.The surgery was performed by the heart, chest and vascular surgery department headed by Dr Krishnakant Sahu. After surgery and 25 cycles of radiation therapy, the child recovered and returned to school, and appeared for his Class VI examination this year.Doctors said the boy suffered for about six months from chest pain, heaviness and breathlessness. Investigations revealed a large tumour in his chest, tightly adherent to the heart and major blood vessels. After several hospitals reportedly declined surgery because of the risk involved, he was referred to Ambedkar hospital.Doctors said the case was especially challenging because the cancer involved the heart, pericardium, phrenic nerve, aorta, main pulmonary artery, left atrium and part of the lung, making complete tumour removal close to impossible in such cases.The tumour was identified as invasive thymic carcinoma, type-B thymoma, stage 3, a disease usually seen in people between 40 and 60 years of age and rarely found in children.Doctors said the four-hour surgery was carried out with a heart-lung machine kept ready for any emergency.Minister Shyam Bihari Jaiswal congratulated the medical team on the achievement. Pt Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Medical College dean Dr Vivek Choudhary said the surgery showed that even highly complex procedures were now being successfully performed in state-run hospitals, reducing the need for patients to travel to metro cities.Ambedkar hospital superintendent Dr Santosh Sonkar said the successful operation once again demonstrated the capability of the hospital's heart, chest and vascular surgery unit, which handles most of the state's chest, lung and mediastinal cancer surgeries.