News
Complex 10-hr surgery to remove massive chest growth
View(s):- A multidisciplinary team guided by Dr. D.M.S. Handagala removes part of the chest wall, the diaphragm, lung and liver to free patient of an invasive tumour
 Burdened by the growth before the surgery |
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By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
The wife and two children of 39-year-old Sunil* are overjoyed, for now he has shed the huge growth that was impeding his breathing and also his very movements.
Dr. D.M.S. Handagala
This port worker from Negombo has been able to get rid of the massive mass which had begun as a “small lump” on the right chest wall, due to the skill and deep knowledge of a multidisciplinary team at the Welisara National Hospital for Respiratory Diseases which also doubles up as a vibrant Chest Hospital.
Referred from the Negombo Hospital, when Welisara Hospital’s Consultant Thoracic Surgeon Dr. D.M.S. Handagala saw Sunil and studied all the reports of the chest wall tumour including a biopsy, he had realized that it was suggestive of a benign bone-originating growth…….and his decision was: “Ain karamu (Let’s remove it).”
As the surgery was complex and complicated, the skills of a multidisciplinary team were vital and it was on June 24 that Sunil underwent a 10-hour operation. The team had included surgical and medical specialists and junior doctors, nurses and physiotherapists and the microbiology team.
Dr. Handagala commends the staff of the Operating Theatre (OT) as well as the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where Sunil was for 1½ days post-surgery; the High Dependency Unit (HDU) where he spent several more days and the ward.
It is from Dr. Handagala’s Senior Registrar in Thoracic Surgery, Dr. Dilip Madanayake – who along with his colleague Senior Registrar Dr. H. Weerasekera was part of the team – that the Sunday Times gets the details of this marathon surgery.
Dr. Kolitha Karunadasa
Explaining how when Sunil came under the care of Dr. Handagala, they performed many tests including an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and CT (Computed Tomography) scans to check whether the growth had spread to soft tissues, Dr. Madanayake says that “it had invaded the chest wall, right side of the diaphragm and the liver”.
So the skilled team under the guidance of Dr. Handagala and including Consultant Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon, Dr. Kolitha Karunadasa, and Consultant Gastrointestinal Surgeon, Dr. Suchintha Tillakaratne, both from the North Colombo (Ragama) Teaching Hospital set to work. The crucial anaesthetist team had been guided by Consultant Anaesthetists Dr. K.A.P. Dhammika and Dr. (Mrs.) Rasika Jayatilake, while in the post-op phase Sunil had been looked after by Consultant Thoracic Surgeon, Dr. Sujeewa Ilangamage.
The challenging surgery from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on June 24 entailed the excision of parts of the chest wall and the diaphragm (the muscle that sits under the lungs, separating the chest cavity from the abdomen), as well as part of the lung. Inside the abdominal cavity, they had accessed the liver and removed part of its right lobe as the tumour was in that area too.
Dr. K.A.P. Dhammika
The procedure to resect (remove) part of the liver of this magnitude was a first at the Welisara Operating Theatre, the Sunday Times understands.
The reconstruction of the gaping hole in the diaphragm and chest wall had been successfully achieved by using a mesh as the anchor, plastered with bone cement (polymethyl methacrylate – PMMA)
Mage operation eka lesi ekak nemai, doctors-la devi-varu, is Sunil’s emotional “thank you” to the team as he adds that the operation was no easy surgical task and the doctors are god-like.
(*Name changed to ensure confidentiality)
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