An 18-year-old patient who was carrying a tumour weighing 12 kg underwent successful surgery at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH) in Delhi, making it the largest in-situ (inside body) so far, said the hospital authorities.

According to the SGRH, the largest tumour earlier reported was by University of Miami, US in 2014. When Praveen Kumar Gupta came to the hospital in December last year, he was unable to walk or sit properly and had a huge swelling in the left thigh. Due to pressure on nerves and blood vessels, there was weakness and loss of sensations in the limb.

Investigations revealed that there was a huge tumour (size of 37cm x 18cm x 12cm) which involved the hip and the full length of back of the thigh. The swelling appeared in 2012, and gradually increased. "The patient was diagnosed with rapid growing tumour. Had we delayed the surgery, it would have turned malignant. Morbidity and mortality chances are always high in such cases. The tumour was local, infiltrating into blood vessels and nerves," Dr Brajesh Nandan, Orthopaedic Onco-Surgeon, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, told IANS.

Gupta ran the risk of his tumour extending till pelvis, abdomen, knee joint or even back. "The tumour was perfused by blood supply making it highly vascular in nature. Before the removal, our team performed a procedure called pre-operative embolization in which we blocked the blood supply to the tumour to reduce blood loss during the surgical excision," Dr Ambrish Satwick, Vascular and Endovascular Surgeon, SGRH added.

According to the medical experts, the main challenge was that blood supply of the tumour was adjoining the main blood supply of the lower limb. "Any untoward incident could have led to a disastrous operation. Using road-map guidance software, we successfully blocked the main blood vessel to the tumour without compromising with blood supply to the limb," Dr Satwick noted. For the main surgery, a team of seven surgeons was formed who took more than 9 hours to complete the surgery.