KOLKATA: A five-year-old girl from Darjeeling will undergo a rare plastic surgery at a state-run hospital in Kolkata to remove a 9 cm by 6 cm hairy mole that covers most of her nose.
Aarti Subba a student of Ramakrishna Mission has a rare condition of having a mole on her nose. Sources at the hospital said the Mission authorities contacted the hospital for the surgery, after which, Subba was admitted to the NRS Hospital in Kolkata two weeks ago.
The state health department is in the process of acquiring a special machine called ‘nose expander’ to perform the surgery.
The machine is likely to reach the city by Saturday and the surgery will start from Monday onward.
However, the authorities at the hospital said the chances of the mole affecting her breathing are less.
According to the hospital’s plastic surgery department head Dr. Collin Roy, the ‘hairy mole’ or ‘nevus’ of this size on the nose is one the rarest and is caused by melanin pigmentation. However, the mole is not in contact with the muscles or nerves and could be removed by a process called ‘nose reconstruction by tissue expander skin flap’.
Hospital sources revealed that ‘nose expander’ machine would insert a balloon into the mole and then the balloon would be expanded by pushing water into the balloon. The mole would then be sliced off from the nose and skin from the
patient’s forehead would be attached to her nose. Though surgery would leave a mark on the nose, it will gradually disappear over time.