ASTANA – A 1.5-year-old baby girl got unique surgery for the simultaneous removal of a liver tumor and a tumor thrombus performed by capital-based University Medical Center (UMC) specialists.
Photo credit: UMC press service
The UMC team encountered an unusual clinical case while treating a little patient. At the beginning of the year, a 1.5–year–old girl was hospitalized at the UMC Mother and Child Center with hepatoblastoma of the right lobe of the liver, a highly malignant tumor that occurs in children. The results of computer and magnetic resonance imaging showed a large growth that spread into the cavity of the right atrium, reported the UMC press service on June 24.
“The multidisciplinary council decided to start treatment with courses of polychemotherapy. According to clinical protocols, this therapy tactic helps to significantly reduce the size of the tumor, which further makes it possible to safely perform surgery. After four courses of chemotherapy, the child’s condition indicators improved markedly, and the tumor decreased by more than two times. However, the removal of the tumor was still complicated by the presence of a blood clot in the inferior vena cava, at the very entrance to the heart,” reads a statement from the UMC.
The team decided to use a heart-lung bypass machine with the participation of cardiac surgeons at the UMC Heart Center. The device is often used during open heart surgery as a way to replace its function and maintain continuous blood circulation. During an eight-hour procedure, physicians removed a malignant liver tumor, followed by the removal of a blood clot during open heart surgery with a cardiopulmonary bypass machine. The resulting defect of the inferior vena cava was also plasticized with a patch from its own pericardium. The heart-lung bypass machine operated for 117 minutes. The patient’s condition is stable, and the girl has been discharged home.
The heart-lung bypass machine device was used for the first time at the UMC Mother and Child Center. Previously, newborns with congenital heart disease were referred to the Heart Center for surgery.
This surgery was performed by the UMC specialists. They include UMC Board Chairman Yuriy Pya, cardiac surgeon Galymzhan Utegenov, pediatric surgeons Dulat Mustafinov, Dastan Rustemov, and Ruslan Utebaliyev, pediatric anesthesiologists Talgat Ibrayev, Gulmira Zhauarova, perfusiologist Linar Faizov, operating nurses Maral Shardenova, Raushan Smailova and Anastasiya Bayandina. Also, a significant contribution to the treatment and preparation for the operation of a little patient was made by the team of oncologists and the attending physician Kamaliddin Omirzakh.
