Bengaluru: Doctors' rare surgery saves newborn with malignant lump

Bengaluru: For 36-year-old Manoj C. Patil and his pregnant wife, a routine scan at the eighth month came as a rude shock. It revealed that the baby had a huge swelling on the left arm.

“Ever since that scan life was a nightmare for us. We could not concentrate on either personal or office work,” said Manoj. The couple was also informed about the surgery and the complications. 

“Unfortunately there was nothing much that could be done at that point of time. The swelling was increasing each day and the doctors advised us to wait till the delivery and only then they could decide further course of action,” Manoj added. Ever since that scan they were mulling about the treatment and other alternatives.  

Master Mayur was born with a large vascular malformation over the left upper arm, extending from the shoulder to the elbow and was almost 50 per cent of the size of the baby.

“Since it was a tumour of the blood vessel and it eats up the platelets, the platelet count keeps dropping, often to dangerous levels. Hence, the baby was started on conservative treatment, but the child remained unstable and had to be admitted in ICU repeatedly with issues of blood clots as the blood was getting destroyed within this tumor," said Dr C. N. Radha Krishnan, HOD & Consultant, Department Of Pediatric Surgery, Manipal Hospitals. He along with different teams, including hematologists, pediatric surgeons, blood bank, plastic surgeon and radiologists had to work together in this case. “This was team work of all the specialists, starting with the Fetal medicine department that made the diagnosis antenatally. Parents were counseled and were prepared,” Dr Krishnan said. “One of the issues was that the child might lose the arm and this was also communicated to the parents. Luckily, post surgery the arm has turned out to be useful and the rehabilitation team is working on making it more functional.  Hopefully, since children have a huge adaptive capability there would be an improvement,” he added.

“We were though surprised how the lump was missed during the 5th-month anomaly scan. However, from our side, we skipped the seventh-month scan and this was discovered only in the eighth month. Unfortunately, nothing much can be done at that stage though the baby was growing normally. I feel parents should not take any risk when it comes to pregnancy related scans, check-ups, tests,” said  Manoj.