Surgeons at Government Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College Hospital here have removed a tumour from the thalamus part of the brain of a six-day-old baby girl. The doctors said the baby was born to a couple in early January at a Government Hospital in Erode. At birth, the child did not cry and doctors at the Erode GH referred her to the Salem hospital where the tumour was detected.
L. Shankar, Head of the Department of Neurosurgery said “The surgery was performed by a team of doctors on January 22 and it is a very complex surgery to be performed on a newborn. The risks were high. It took us five hours to complete the surgery and the tumour was successfully removed.” The team included neurosurgeon H.M. Baba Doulath Khan and Head of the Department of Anaesthesia G. Shivakumar. Post surgery, the child was kept under observation in the neo-natal intensive care unit, and was doing well now, said P. Sampath Kumar, Head of the Department of Paediatrics. Periodic tests would be done to check for recurrence of tumour.
R. Balajinathan, Dean of the hospital, said “This is a very rare condition that occurs in only 5% of 1 lakh newborns”.
