Surgeons remove 'world's largest brain tumour' from man who'd lived with growth for 30 years

A brain tumour thought to be the world’s largest has been successfully removed by a team of surgeons.

Santlal Pal, 31, had complained of a progressive swelling of scalp, heaviness, headaches and a loss of vision in both eyes ever since he was one.

Although he’d lived with the tumour for 30 years, it began to grow rapidly in 2017.

By the time he was admitted to B.Y.L. Nair Charitable Hospital in Mumbai he was blind and his scalp has swelled to 30 x 30 x 20 cms and appeared as if he had two heads mounted on top of each other.

Scans revealed the tumour had invaded into the brain on both sides of the midline through skull bone and revealed the blood supply of the tumour.

But in a seven-hour long operation Indian doctors successfully removed the massive tumour along with skull bone which had invaded into the brain.

Doctors said the tumour, weighing a staggering 1.873kg or 4.12lbs, had cost Mr. Pal his vision, but hoped he would gradually regain his eyesight.

‘The tumour was much bigger than his own head,’ neurosurgeon Dr. Trimurti Nadkarni, who performed the surgery with a five-member team, told TheHindu.com.

‘We have checked all the available medical texts. We have not found any tumour as big as this.’

The previous biggest brain tumour to be successful removed was 1.4kg or 3.08lbs.

The cloth seller needed a transfusion of 11 units of blood and then spent three days on life support afterwards but has since made a good recovery.

Professor Dr Trimurti Nadkarni continued: ‘Such large tumours are rare and are a surgical challenge.

‘There was a heavy blood loss and this required great team skill in perioperative monitoring for a successful result.

‘The weight of a similar case reported earlier has been 1.4 kgs.

‘The patient has made good recovery and is now ambulatory and on full diet. He feels relieved of ‘a large burden on his head.’

Dr. Nadkarni said he had removed a brain tumour weighing 1.4 kg from a patient in 2002.

A tumour the size of two cricket balls was removed in Delhi in 2008.