BENGALURU: Thanks to doctors in the city, a 14-year-old girl from West Bengal can now breathe easy, literally.
The teenager was diagnosed with wheezing by doctors in Bengal and was treated for 3-4 years. When it reached a point where she could hardly breathe, her parents reached out to Manipal Hospital in Bengaluru.
“For a girl her age, wheezing was out of proportion. The CT scan revealed that she had a tumour in her throat. It was shocking to see that such a young girl had got throat tumour, since this is quite a rare occurrence,” said Dr Satyanarayana Mysore, HOD, Sleep Medicine and Interventional Pulmonologist.
Since both laser treatment and surgery were beyond financial means of the parents, the girl was given antibiotics and injections for a week. After the treatment, the family left, only to return in two days since the condition had worsened.
Immediate surgery was decided under an interdisciplinary team approach. “To give the child anaesthesia was difficult too. A doctor was called from UK who is an expertise in this and he gave her the injection.
Transesophageal Echocardiogram (TEE) procedure was done. Unlike a standard echocardiogram, the echo transducer that produces the sound waves for TEE is attached to a thin tube that passes through your mouth, down your throat and into your esophagus, which shows pictures of your heart. This procedure was risky as there are chances of damage to esophagus,” explained Dr Girish Rai, consultant surgeon, ENT, Manipal Hospitals.
The doctors then learned that the tumour had blocked 80 per cent of her breathing passage. The tumour was further removed through laser treatment after a one-hour-30-minute surgery.
Now, the teenager is fine and has been asked to get a complete routine check up for six months.