In Puducherry, a 56-year-old woman has been treated for a rare type of cancer at Sri Venkateshwara Medical College Hospital and Research Centre. The surgery lasted for 12 hours, and the patient is known to have undergone a coronary angioplasty 10 years prior.

This surgery was done by a team of surgeons and anesthetists. Dr. Ravishankar, the Head of the Surgical Oncology Department, stated that this surgery is a complex procedure, and the procedure has been known only for the last ten years.

The 56-year-old woman from Cuddalore has abdominal distension and was not able to take sufficient food in her diet. She had undergone coronary angioplasty, a surgery done to treat a cardiac condition, before 10 years. On medical examination, she was diagnosed with a rare mucinous cancer called Pseudomyxoma peritonei.

The surgery, conducted at Sri Venkateshwara Medical College and Hospital, involved cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC). The HIPEC procedure is performed only after the complete removal of the tumor, requiring the monitoring of chemotherapeutic agents for their temperature. Various organs in the peritoneal cavity, including the spleen, rectum, uterus, and ovary, along with the total peritoneum, were removed. Chemotherapeutic agents, along with warm saline, were infused into the abdominal cavity to wash out cancer cells. The entire surgery lasted for 12 hours, and the patient was successfully discharged.

Pseudomyxoma Peritonei

According to the International Journal of Hyperthermia, Pseudomyxoma Peritonei is a rare type of cancer in which mucinous tumor cells accumulate in the peritoneal cavity of the abdomen.

Clinical features

• This type of cancer usually does not show any symptoms in its early stages, as the growth of the tumour in the appendix is slow.

• If the tumor ruptures, it will not show any symptoms and will cause bacterial contamination, leading to abdominal distension and pain.

• This condition usually leads to obstruction of the bowel, making it difficult to eat a sufficient amount of food.

Diagnostic methods

• CT scan

• scalloping of the liver is the classical feature used to diagnose this condition.

(Input from various media sources)

References:

1) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02656736.2017.1310938

2) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1245/s10434-022-12367-6

Rehash/Rohini Devi