7-year-old girl child suffers from Cervical Tumor

• KIMS doctor completely removes the tumour with the state-of-the-art technology

Hyderabad,  December 2021: Padmini is a 7-year-old child, who is very brilliant and good at studying. She has many dreams to fulfil and was trying to achieve them. Her father is a shopkeeper, who sells sweets to maintain the family. A sudden jerk happened in the family when the child developed severe neck pain. She was diagnosed as having a tumour in the neck, which is very close to a major blood vessel, supplying blood to the brain.

The entire family was in a deep shock after hearing the news. They went to various hospitals in India, searching for the right solution to this problem. Finally, they have reached KIMS hospital, Kondapur and met Consultant Spine Surgeon Dr Sri Krishna Chaitanya.  He explained the problem and the procedure done."Thanks to the state-of-the-art technology, which was available at KIMS hospitals Kondapur, she was operated successfully. Initially, the tumour was separated from the vertebral artery. A confirmatory CT scan was performed before further excising the tumour. The cervical lateral mass was removed successfully and her neck is also fused with lateral mass screws.  Only two vertebrae are fused, and the remaining can move. So the child can play games and sports in her further life. Baby Padmini recovered well after this procedure and resumed her normal activities.

Cervical osteoid osteoma, which is close to the vertebral artery is very rare and difficult to operate. The pre-operative planning was including 3-d printing technology. This can make a bone model so that the doctors can plan the size and position of the screws on that model before surgery for perfection. In such cases, the entire tumour excision has to be done in one piece completely. Then only, the post-operative prognosis is usually good and recurrence of cancer is  rare."