Doctors remove a two-kilo tumor in a small baby

In Italy, a ten-month-old girl had a two-kilogram tumor removed from her liver. Doctors removed the oversized and heavy tumor in the Bambino Gesu children’s hospital in Rome in an operation that lasted around six hours, as the Vatican-owned clinic announced on Friday.

The girl herself weighed only eight kilograms at the time of the procedure about two months ago – the tumor therefore made up about a quarter of her body weight.

Because the girl had a noticeably swollen stomach compared to the twin brother and suffered from loss of appetite, the concerned parents took the child to the hospital for an examination. During an ultrasound examination and tissue removal, the doctors discovered the tumor with a diameter of 13 centimeters, which was already pressing on the surrounding organs and literally pushing them away.

Mesenchymal hamartoma: Rare, benign liver tumor

According to the information, it was a so-called mesenchymal hamartoma, a rare and benign liver tumor. The cells that make up the hamartoma are normal but grow out of control. Although rare, it is the second most common tumor that can develop in children’s livers, particularly in the first two years of life.

In the little girl’s case, the tumor had taken up a large portion of the liver, so removal would not have left enough healthy liver. A complicated and innovative method was therefore chosen, which makes it possible to increase the volume of the healthy liver within a few weeks in order to compensate for the tissue removed during the operation.

After the enlargement of the healthy liver was achieved, the surgery could be performed. According to the clinic, such an operation has only been carried out twice on such young children worldwide. The girl is now twelve months old, he is doing very well and is growing normally again, the hospital said.