"The world's heaviest tumor ever recorded" was removed by Indian surgeons from the head of a 31-year-old shopkeeper in a tension-filled surgery on Valentine's Day. According to the doctors from Mumbai's BYL Nair Hospital, the marathon seven-hour operation resulted in the successful removal of said tumor that was so big, it appeared as though "he had two heads mounted on top of each other."
Santlal Pal had been carrying around a four-pound, eight-by-twelve-inch tumor on his head prior to the surgery. According to Nair Hospital's head of neurosurgery, Trimurti Nadkarni, they had to cut through the skull in order to successfully remove it. "The sheer size of the tumor was a challenge, and we had to ensure blood pressure was maintained while surgery was on," said Nadkarni to The Indian Express.
Nadkarni later told BBC News that after a week, it was all a matter of ensuring that the 31-year-old patient would recover well from the life-altering surgery. According to the news site The Hindu, the tumor was growing steadily in the previous years, but grew much more rapidly last year. The huge mass was already clinging to the man's head, causing it to be shaped irregularly. His brother Akhilesh told The Indian Express that in just a month, it grew over an inch.
His brother Akhilesh also said that chemotherapy and other treatments did not stop the tumor from growing. As he told The Indian Express, "He would feel a heaviness in his head, which ached constantly, and his vision was blurred."
Pal and his wife Manju consulted doctors at Uttar Pradesh, but were earlier told that the tumor was inoperable. The operation came at the most opportune time, as doctors said that if it were not removed, it would have caused neurological damage or paralysis. And since Pal was anemic, the tumor could have evolved into vascular steal, wherein the blood flow became diverted from his brain and toward the mass. If in case Pal continued without getting proper surgery, the situation would have been fatal.
