Media Release
Udupi, Aug 14: A 32-year-old man with difficulty in swallowing solids was diagnosed to have cancer in the esophagus without any tumor spread at the Kasturba Hospital in Manipal. He was operated and discharged after 15 days. The surgery took 16 hours.
It was a complex case as the man had undergone distal gastrectomy (removal of distal part of stomach) at the age of five for blockage of stomach due to the presence of a part of pancreas in the distal stomach.
Post the surgery, the patient was able to eat normally after nine days and was discharged after 15 days. The surgery was performed by Dr Naveena Kumar A N and team (Dr Nawaz Usman, Dr Sudhir Varma, Dr Ananth S Mathad). The vascular part of surgery (supercharging) was performed by Cardiovascular Surgeon Dr Arvind Kumar Bishnoi. The anesthesia was managed by Dr Manjunath Prabu and Dr Arun Kumar.
Prior to the surgery, the patient received a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy before the procedure. Following good response, he was planned for surgery. Usually in the surgery of the esophagus in the thoracic part it would be removed and reconstructed with stomach tube. In view of previous surgery in this patient, the stomach was not available for esophageal reconstruction. So, food pipe reconstruction following cancer surgery was a challenge and it was planned with colon conduit, which is part of large intestine.
The thoracic part of esophageal resection was performed by Video assisted thoracoscopic surgery by keyhole surgery. On opening the abdomen, extensive adhesions was found. Part of the stomach, intestine and liver stuck to each other inside the abdomen, which was released gradually over time.
The upper part of esophagus was exposed in the neck by small incision and transected just below the mouth. The thoracic part of esophagus along with tumor part was delivered to the abdomen and the procedure completed.
Dr Avinash Shetty, medical superintendent, Kasturba Hospital, Manipal, congratulated the team lead by Dr Naveen in performing the surgery with a high level of precision and said, “It was good news for the people of the region to know that such a surgery can be done at Kasturba Hospital. Currently, the department of surgical oncology is run by a team of surgeons trained at the prestigious Tata memorial hospital, Mumbai. Dr Naveen is exclusively trained in Gastro intestinal cancer surgeries, Laparoscopic, Robotic and HIPEC surgeries. The department offers all basic and advanced cancer surgeries” surgery and post-surgery treatment requires extensive expertise, this kind of surgery should be performed in high volume hospital.
“Currently the treatment of all cancer patients are discussed in the tumor board meeting being held by Manipal Comprehensive Cancer care center (MCCCC) group, where treatment of individual cancer cases are discussed in detail by team members consisting of surgical oncologists, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, Pathologists, Radiologists and Palliative Medicine doctors,” he added.