A rare surgery performed by doctors at the Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH) to remove a 50-gram tumour from a newborn baby’s oral cavity has helped the infant suck mother’s milk 25 days after she was born.
GRH doctors said this is only the second time such a surgery was successfully performed in the country. The tumour was removed a week ago, but doctors shared the success story with mediapersons on Wednesday after examining the baby’s progress.
For the baby’s mother Sharmila Banu, the surgery has brought back joys of motherhood after nearly a month of painful trauma of not being able to feed her newborn. “I was not able to feed my baby because the tumour was obstructing the oral passage. She survived on fluid drips. Doctors said that from today I can feed her. It is the most exciting development for me,” said Banu, a native ofAruldaspuram in Madurai, who is now settled in Chennai with her husband S Arumugam, a Fire and Rescue Department officer.
Even during her sixth month of pregnancy, a scan at a Chennai hospital had revealed that a complicated tumour was being formed on the baby’s oral cavity. However, Banu remained hopeful and delivered the baby at the GRH on September 30. “The teratoma (congenital tumour inside oral cavity) is found in one in 40, 000 babies. Teratoma may contain hair, teeth, bone and rarely organs such as eyes, torso, hands and feet. We decided to operate on the baby,” said GRH Dean Dr N Mohan.
“The most complicated part of the surgery was administering anesthesia to the baby. In normal cases, anesthesia would be administered through the mouth for infants. But in this case we had to insert an endotracheal tube through her mouth and administer anesthesia” explained Dr Ganesh Prabhu, director, Institute of Anesthesiology.
The surgery took over an hour. “It was made possible because of the sophisticated equipment the hospital has,” said Dr S K Raghunandhan, Head, Department of Pediatric Surgery, GRH.