Oncosurgeons at the Seven Hills Hospital in Andheri operated upon a 45-year-old South African woman for breast cancer and removed the cancer tumour, weighing 4.8 kgs. Mary (name changed) had been living with the tumour for over a year and a half. Mary flew down to Mumbai after she realised that she couldn’t ignore the abnormal lump in her breast any longer. After getting herself admitted to the Seven Hills Hospital in Marol, she underwent a battery of tests and it was learnt that she was diagnosed with what is termed as locally advanced breast cancer. “Mary had been living with the tumour, a cancerous one at that for over a year and half. She went on ignoring the lump despite the abnormality of it, because she said she did not experience any pain. We did her Positron Emission Tomography- Computed Tomography (PET/CT), which showed that the huge tumour was a locally advanced breast cancer tumour and had not spread to any other organs of her body. To bring down the size of the tumour before we could perform surgery on her, she received three cycles of chemotherapy,” said Indoo Ambulkar, oncologist at Seven Hills Hospital. Mary underwent mastectomy surgery to remove her breast and the reconstruction of the breast lasted for four-and-a -half hours. “I feel so relieved now. And I’m also glad that my decision of coming all the way to India has paid off,” said Mary. Post surgery, Mary will require sessions of chemotherapy for another three months, followed by radiotherapy. “Considering the size of the tumour, Mary will require post operative radiotherapy to prevent further recurrence. The external beam radiotherapy is a local form of treatment delivered to the chest wall and regional lymph nodes after mastectomy. It continues for five to six weeks, five days a week,” said Dr Phoolkumari Talukdar, radiation oncologist, Seven Hills Hospital.
