16-Month-Old Becomes Youngest Patient To Have Brain Tumor Removed Through Nose

A team of doctors in India managed to successfully remove a large brain tumor through a toddler’s nose.

The 16-month-old toddler was brought to Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in the city of Chandigarh with loss of vision. An MRI revealed the toddler had a large 3 cm tumor in her brain.

"The child was normal and playful a few months back. For the last 20 days, her mother noticed that she was not following anything shown to her. The child’s MRI revealed a calcified brain tumor at the base of the skull, suggestive of craniopharyngioma of size 3 cm, large for a child of one year, close to critical neural structures, such as optic nerves and hypothalamus," PGIMER said, local daily Hindustan Times reported.

A surgery was performed on the girl, who the hospital claims is world’s "youngest-ever patient" on whom such a procedure has been performed, and the tumor was successfully removed.

Speaking to local news outlet The Print on Friday, Dr. Dhandapani S.S., who performed the surgery, said such a procedure is usually performed on children over the age of 6.

"These kinds of tumours till 5-7 years would be operated on by opening the skull. Recently, we have started doing it through the nose at any good centres … The only problem is that we can only do this in those above six years and not those who are younger because the nose doesn’t have much space and the bone is very immature. The bone is hard because there is no space," he told the outlet.

"It was very scary to think about it in the first go, but somehow we had the conviction that we could do it," he added.

The surgery lasted for six years and the doctors used miniaturized instruments to perform the procedure. A diamond drill was used to create a pathway through which the tumor was removed.

"We went with an open mind because whether we are benefiting a patient or not, our first goal is not to harm the patient. So we didn’t want to take any undue risks also … But by God’s grace, everything went fine. The child was almost blind and has now regained vision with no complications so far. It has almost been almost 12 days and we are discharging her," said Dr. Dhandapani told the outlet.