With her heart and one lung oppressed by a tumor mass, the removal of which was too risky, she still managed to give birth to a healthy child and a few months later she was in turn saved with a long and very delicate operation for the removal of the tumor, as big as a melon. The ordeal with a happy ending has as its protagonist a 22-year-old woman from the province of Turin, who underwent surgery at the Molinette of the Città della Salute in Turin and has now returned home with her heart and lungs back to full functionality. Even the son is fine.
The tumor diagnosed 4 years earlier
The tumor had been diagnosed four years earlier. A sarcoma of the chest, which spread to the bones, treated for two years with cycles of chemotherapy and radiotherapy which eliminated the metastases but not that boulder in the chest whose surgical removal was not recommended due to the very high risk of damaging vital organs. Any daily activity was a huge effort for the young woman who, however, with her partner, decided to get pregnant, while aware that at the time of her birth her heart could have given way.
Cesarean delivery
But the caesarean section at the Sant’Anna hospital in the Città della Salute in Turin was successful, mother and son were discharged. A few months later, however, the girl’s condition worsened again. Air no longer passed through the lungs, which were increasingly compressed by the tumor mass. There was no other solution than a desperate attempt to remove it even though it was glued to the walls of the heart and most of the left lung. The operation at the Molinettes, which lasted 6 hours, was successful: the tumor mass was removed preserving the heart and restoring the full functionality of the left lung. Ten days after her surgery, the young woman returned home and a month later her heart started beating normally again and her breathing returned to normal.