Bengaluru doctors bring Iraqi girl’s smile back

Bengaluru: "Through Allah’s grace, I have got my smile back and now I feel happy everyday when I look at myself in the mirror," shares 23-year-old Alyaa Hassan from Iraq who was diagnosed with benign tumour of the salivary gland.

She underwent two surgeries in her country, where they were unable to remove the tumor completely because the doctors feared destroying the nerve to which the tumor was attached.

"She had a tumour on the salivary gland and it was attached to the nerve that controls the facial expressions and the problem is that when a tumour grows on such a nerve, it has a potential to completely disfigure the face if it is not removed properly," explains Dr Vishal Rao, Consultant, Head and Neck Surgery, HCG hospital.

Hence in her country, they were unable to remove the tumour completely owing to its proximity to the facial nerve, because of which she had two unsuccessful surgeries. "She approached us because her tumour had again recurred and doctors there had refused a third surgery because there were high chances of paralysis of the face," says Dr Vishal.

"Repeatedly disturbing the tumour is not advised and without removing it fully it has the potential to grow rapidly, leading to bad recurrences," explains Dr Vishal. However, with good dissection techniques and precision the doctors helped her get rid of the tumour without harming the nerve. "Luckily, there was no malignancy so the case was not critical. But there were a lot of scars from the initial surgeries and hence locating the nerve was a problem," adds the doctor who said that the nerve was deeply embedded and it was safe.

The one-and-a-half-hour long surgery saw the doctors remove the tumour which was 2.5 cm big and the procedure was done via 'Nerve Monitoring System' which helped clear the tumour, without affecting the nerves. "We used advanced nerve monitors which help in the protection of the nerves better in an otherwise extremely difficult surgery, which helped us stimulate the nerve to locate it," adds Dr Vishal. The girl has however been asked to come back for follow-ups to remove the stitches.