Dubai: In a rare case of minimal invasive surgery to extract an 8cm cyst from the liver, a UAE surgeon was able to resect a portion of the liver of a 49-year-old woman, laparoscopically.
The patient from Fujairah had been suffering from abdominal swelling, breathlessness, pain and nausea and had lost her appetite for many days. The baseball-sized cyst was growing on a portion of the liver and was resected in a three-hour keyhole surgery at the Thumbay Hospital, Sharjah
Risk from liver cysts
Dr Raj Kumar, consultant surgeon and specialist in minimal invasive surgery who conducted this surgery, told Gulf News, “Liver cysts are usually benign. They are fluid fill sacs that grow on the liver tissue and so far, the reason for their growth is not clearly known. If the cyst is just a few millimeters and causing no symptoms, it can be managed without surgery. In this case, the cyst was the size of a baseball and the patient had pain and suffering. Therefore, there was a danger of it rupturing and causing further complications. Excising it was a good decision.”
Big cyst caused symptoms
In the case of this patient, her cyst was spotted two-and-a-half years ago during a routine CT scan when she suffered back pain. The family thought it would go away in some time, but the cyst was pressing on the abdominal wall of the patient who was not able to do her routine work. She had bouts of nausea and vomiting and so she came to the hospital and underwent a CT scan — only to discover that the cyst had grown to be 8x7cm, the doctor said.
Total recovery for patient
With no cuts, just small incisions, the recovery was fast for the patient and she has since resumed her normal life. Her appetite has returned and the fever, vomiting, nausea disappeared, according to the post-operative information released by the hospital.
