Mumbai: Dual cancer patient now on way to recovery

Pre- and post-surgery pictures of Rajaram Mane’s leg

"Don't get scared of the Big C," Dr Shubham Mane from Aurangabad tells us on the eve of World Cancer Day. "If you are in the right hands, miracles do happen." Dr Mane's 70-year-old father Rajaram (name changed), a retired MSEB employee from Parbhani, had a lump on his right thigh for a long time. Over the last six months, it suddenly started growing in size, increasing up to 30 cm, and made walking difficult for him. "My father was scared of getting inside the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine and it took a lot of convincing. The MRI report confirmed liposarcoma (soft tissue malignant tumour), but the pain and lump growth persisted. A subsequent biopsy of the tumour at a hospital in Aurangabad, too, confirmed that it was malignant," recalled Dr Mane.

An oncologist in Nanded recommended a PET-CT scan and to the Manes' horror, it showed lymph nodes around his abdomen and cervical area. "I was told that the cancer might have spread and that surgery was not advisable, as my father was in the fourth stage of the disease. The oncologist advised chemotherapy," said Dr Mane. Dr Mane then brought his father to Mumbai.

"We decided to get certain tests redone, to be very sure about the case in hand and to our surprise, we found this to be a confirmed case of two different cancers that Rajaram had in his body. Having two cancers simultaneously is not very common but the lymphoma was very mild and did not require active treatment," said Dr Meghal Sanghavi, Consultant Oncosurgeon at the Wockhardt hospital in Mumbai Central. The biggest challenge for the surgeon and her team of experts - anaesthetist Dr Chitra Sarma, plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr Shradha Deshpande and surgery associate Dr Vineet Kini - was to prepare Rajaram for a supra major surgery, as he was already anaemic due to weight loss, and they had to preserve his limb to avoid any amputation of the leg.

"The surgery lasted for six to seven hours, and the challenge was to remove the tumour, which was almost 2.50 kilograms in size. The huge tumorous mass was removed, and we were able to save his limb. He required two bottles of blood during the course of surgery and post recovery results were very good. The patient was discharged almost a week later and he even completed the radiation therapy to rid his body of the disease," said Dr Sanghavi. Dr Mane added that the last few months before the surgery were tough. "The fear of getting operated on had affected my father psychologically and his appetite was also affected, resulting in sudden weight loss. But now, he is gradually able to move around and is also gaining weight."

The experience has not been without its lesson either. "Patients from rural areas, instead of getting treated in nearby district or taluka hospitals, should visit advanced centers in bigger cities, where experienced and senior experts' way of diagnosing the ailment is the key to get a positive result. My father would have been deprived of cancer treatment, had I not got him to Mumbai. It also helped dispel the earlier misdiagnosis that the cancer had spread," he said.