Media release

Mangaluru, Oct 21: A 55- year-old woman hailing from Haveri presented with vague symptoms of early satiety, fullness of stomach and lump involving the whole of abdomen which after CT scan and guided biopsy, was diagnosed to be neuroendocrine tumour. She underwent surgery in the form of total gastrectomy that entailed removal of the tumour en masse along with whole of stomach. Patient is completely cured and discharged from the hospital.

This rare tumour weighing approximately 1kg was successfully removed from the abdomen by the team of doctors, Dr Rohan Shetty and Dr Ashwin Alva K, Consultant Surgical Gastroenterolgists and DrTrivikram Tantri, Anaesthetist, A J Hospital and Research Centre in city.

Neuroendocrine tumours, a cancer which is less virulent, are seen to arise from various organs such as stomach, intestine pancreas and liver. This type of tumour when removed completely is known to be curative and does not need further treatment like chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Compared to all other cancers, incidence of such rare tumours is only 0.5% with minimal symptoms, hence they are not detected at an early stage. Steve Jobs of Apple fame was diagnosed with same type of tumour originating from pancreas but unfortunately late detection and untimely treatment lead to his death. The need of the hour is early detection and complete removal of this rare but curable cancer.