Doctors remove 15kg tumour from woman who thought all she had was a beer belly

She thought all she had was a beer belly. She thought wrong.

Shanghai General Hospital has removed a huge tumour weighing 15kg from a woman who had thought she had a beer belly.

Shanghai Daily reported today (July 20) that the tumour, which was 37cm in diameter, was taken out of the 35-year-old woman's pelvic cavity after a three-hour operation.

The growth, which nearly occupied the whole cavity, had pushed the patient's ovary and fallopian tube on the right side to the left, said the news site.

It is one of the cases of people with massive abdominal tumours that have been reported around the world.

Read: Doctors remove 23 kg tumour from New Jersey woman

A man from Hubei province in China was said to have one of the world's largest tumours weighing a massive 31kg. Surgeons had to make a 13-inch incision to remove it last year.

The surgery was successful, according to a report from Yibada, which noted that the man was "able to tie his shoelaces" after that.

In May last year, a 33-year-old Chinese man had to undergo a complicated surgery in a Chengdu military hospital lasting six hours to have a 15kg lump removed from his tummy.

The tumour, which was the size of a beach ball, made him look pregnant and affected his chance of finding a bride, he claimed.

The man was reported to have Familial Adenomatous Polyposis (FAP), an inherited disorder characterised by cancer of the large intestine and rectum, which had killed his father.

Last year, Czech man Josef Martinec was shocked to find that his beer belly was actually a 27kg malignant tumour growing in his abdomen.

He made the discovery after going to hospital to have his unbearable back pain checked.

Last year, doctors in Peru removed a 16kg tumour from a young woman's abdomen (above), which had grown inside her since she was 13.

Irianita Rojas Rasma, 22, had struggled to sleep, walk and breath as the tumour on her ovaries grew larger.

Hospital director Dr. Luis Garcia Bernal told Reuters: "It's as if she were pregnant, but twice the size."

Go for your regular health check-ups, everyone.

chenj@sph.com.sg

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