KOLKATA: When an acute pain in her right leg restricted her mobility in March, homemaker Soma Guin had no idea that she was carrying a massive tumour in her ovary and that the pain stemmed from there. The 42-year-old finally got rid of the 12-kilo malignant tumour on July 25.. Soma is now back in her north Kolkata home after the surgery. She, however, has to undergo rounds of chemotherapy after surgery.
“It started with an acute pain for which we consulted an orthopaedic. A series of tests confirmed the tumour that was causing blood to clot in the veins of the leg,” said Arijit Guin, Soma’s brother.
The condition, known as deep vein thrombosis (DVT), is a formation of clot in the deep vein most commonly in the legs. Some cancers, including that of ovaries, have the risk to develop DVT.
A cancer specialty hospital in Kolkata detected malignancy in the tumour and that her ovarian cancer was in stage III. Even as the hospital planned to remove the tumour after six rounds of chemotherapy, doctors told Soma’s family that the surgery must be done with the help of cardiac specialists.
“The mass was so large that it had blocked the flow of blood to the heart. Some of the clot had even reached the heart, causing thrombosis in the leg vein,” said Dr Shaikat Gupta, who conducted the surgery at Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals on July 25.
Prior to the surgery, the patient got a filter placed in the inferior vena cava — the largest vein that moves deoxygenated blood from the legs to the heart and then to the lung. This procedure, carried out at Fortis Hospital, was to prevent the blood clot from travelling to the lung.
“Thankfully the cancer was confined to the ovary. We hope to get a good results after she undergoes few rounds of chemotherapy,” said the onco surgeon.
