VISAKHAPATNAM: A team of three doctors from the neurology department of Seven Hills Hospital successfully performed a rare brain surgery on a 20-year-old girl.
The girl, who hails from Odisha, had come to the hospital with complaints of blurred vision and headache from six months and occasional vomiting. The MRI scan showed a tuberculosis-like formation in the pituitary region, although she showed no symptoms of TB. The doctors, suspecting tuberculosis nevertheless, performed a surgery, removed the pus and sent it for testing.
The surgery, which took four hours and cost `1.2 lakh, revealed that it was tuberculosis of the brain, which is a rare occurrence. In fact, only four such cases (including this one) have been registered in the world so far, all of them from India (Pune, Kolkata and Bihar). The patient was then put on medication for TB and completely recovered, even writing her Intermediate exams successfully.
She will not face any problems in the future, doctors said. She has been under treatment for the past three months, and will continue to receive treatment for the next 15 months, to prevent relapse.
The team of doctors included consultant neurosurgeon Dr. PV Ramana, neurosurgeon Dr. Deepak Mandwe and anaesthesiologist Dr. M Kuchela Babu. Dr. Ramana said that it was advisable to suspect tuberculosis in all cases where there is pus formation, especially because a third of the world’s TB patients are from India.