Dubai: The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) doctors from Latifa, Rashid and Dubai hospitals saved the life of an eight-month-old baby suffering from a rare form of liver cancer by removing a 900-gram tumour in a three-hour surgery.
Dr Mamoun Al Marzouqi, consultant of Paediatric Surgery at Latifa Hospital, who performed the surgery along with Dr Faisal Badri, Consultant, General Surgery at Rashid Hospital, said the parents visited the hospital after they noticed a lump bulging out of his stomach.
“After undergoing a series of tests, we discovered that the child who weighed around eight kg had hepatoblastoma, a very rare cancerous tumour that starts in the liver. This disease primarily affects children from infancy to about three years of age,” said Dr Al Marzouqi.
Al Marzouqi said that this disease is so rare that it only affects 100 infants and toddlers per year in the United States. He added that symptoms of hepatoblastoma include large abdominal mass, weight loss, early puberty in boys, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, to name a few.
Hepatoblastoma can be diagnosed by ultrasound, biopsy, complete blood count (CBC) and multiple imaging studies, including computed tomography scan (also called a CT or CAT scan), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), X-ray, and ultrasound (also called sonography).
“After diagnosing the child, he underwent three sessions of chemotherapy. We then got a CT scan to make sure that there was a shrinkage and conducted the surgery in collaboration with four departments — paediatric surgery, oncology, and anaesthesia from Dubai, Latifa and Rashid hospitals,” he added.
Latifa Hospital is the only hospital in the Dubai and the northern emirates that has the capabilities for treating this disease and conducting this complex surgery required all the best capabilities from all DHA hospitals.
“Within five days the baby was able to eat and resume his normal behaviour. He then went through more chemotherapy sessions and is now doing well,” said Dr Al Marzouqi. He added that this is the fifth case of hepatoblastoma that has been treated successfully at Latifa Hospital in the past five years.
