# Doctors remove 23kg tumour from patient **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 26, 2010, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-remove-23kg-tumour-from-patient/551501 "2010-08-26T05:19:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-remove-23kg-tumour-from-patient/551501/61 "2010-08-27T20:11:38Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > > [@Dogzilla](#): > > > > And it would be a HIPAA violation if he did. > > Does HIPAA apply in Argentina? Or have they something similar? :smack: Oh, no, of course not. To my knowledge, Hilary Clinton has not yet pushed HIPAA through the Argentine legislation. Forgive my lack of enthusiasm for clicking on the link; I wasn’t about to. So I wasn’t aware this story took place in Argentina. Oops. ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-remove-23kg-tumour-from-patient/551501/62 "2010-08-27T20:30:22Z")
> [@sandra\_nz](#): > > You weigh 105kg. You know you’re fat, the world lets you know your fat, the few times you go to the doctor, instead of concentrating on the reason for your visits, he/she spends most of the time lecturing you on your weight. It reminds you of your childhood, of your parents lecturing you, your classmates teasing you, the disapproving looks you got from strangers on the street. You feel ashamed. > > You notice your pants getting tight in the waist. Dammit, you’re gaining weight again! You try to eat less, exercise more, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. You don’t go to the doctor, because what doctor is going to believe you? Besides, you feel fine apart from the weight gain, so what’s the point of going to the doctor? > > You continue to gain weight, your waistline continues to expand. You feel helpless, you still don’t go to the doctor. You’re starting to feel a bit unwell, you’re tired most of the time, but you know it’s because you’re getting fatter, because that’s what happens to fat people. You’ve only yourself to blame, even though you can’t account for the weight gain. > > You try not to think about it, because thinking about it only makes you more depressed. So you avoid looking in the mirror, you start wearing stretch fabric clothing because it’s more comfortable, and you don’t talk to anyone about it. You don’t get out much anyway, so noone really notices the change in you. > > Then here’s the really ridiculous bit - you realise there’s a mass in your belly, but you still don’t want to go to the doctor, because if there is something wrong with you, it’s still your fault for being fat. So you try and put it out of your mind. Until the day you realise it’s gotten very big and you really need to seek help for it. So you decide you’ll call the doctor and make an appointment. You’ll do it next week. > > Next week is quite busy, and you don’t make the appointment. nevermind, you think to yourself, I’ll make the call next week. Or the week after. Or the week after. > > Eventually you make the appointment, the doctor examines you and whisks you off to the hospital. > > Yep, I could definitely see this happening. This scenario totally makes sense for the woman in the OP, but what the hell happened with the woman with the 300lb tumor? My god, how does it come to that? She wasn’t overweight, she looked perfectly normal except for the ball of flesh the size of hippopotamus where her belly should be. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-remove-23kg-tumour-from-patient/551501/63 "2010-08-27T22:41:45Z")
If I recall the details on that story (and it’s been a few years) she suffers from one of those disorders that result in prolific benign tumor growth (like neurofibramatosis, proteus syndrome, etc.) it was a rapidly growing tumor in a woman with a complicated medical history. Basically, a lot of doctors just didn’t want to touch the case, and the damn thing just kept getting bigger and bigger which made most doctors more and more reluctant to have anything to do with the case. Until the folks who finally helped her, who agreed to try to operate because otherwise this thing was going to kill her by simply growing beyond her body’s capacity to keep it fed. Unless it’s a different case I’m thinking of… but once a case gets beyond a certain complexity most doctors want nothing to do with it. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-remove-23kg-tumour-from-patient/551501/64 "2010-08-28T02:21:17Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > If I recall the details on that story (and it’s been a few years) she suffers from one of those disorders that result in prolific benign tumor growth (like neurofibramatosis, proteus syndrome, etc.) > [@a thread from a few years ago](#): > > Largest Tumor Removed Intact > The largest tumor ever removed intact was a multicystic mass of the right ovary weighing 137.6 kg (303 lb). The operation, which took over six hours, was performed by Professor Katherine O’Hanlan of Stanford University Medical Center, California, USA. The growth had a diameter of 1 m (3 ft) and was removed in its entirety in October 1991 from the abdomen of an unnamed 34-year-old woman. The patient – who weighed 95 kg (210 lb) after the operation and has made a full recovery – left the operating theater on one stretcher and the cyst left on another. [Link!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7202858&postcount=1) ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2010, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-remove-23kg-tumour-from-patient/551501/65 "2010-08-28T02:55:41Z")
According to another online story about the 23 kg tumor, it’s been identified as a sarcoma. Based on the report of it growing “inside the woman’s womb” (uterus), two of the likeliest possibilities are that it’s either a leiomyosarcoma (a smooth muscle tumor) or a mixed mullerian tumor a.k.a. carcinosarcoma (a type of neoplasm which has both epithelial and sarcomatous elements). Both of these are solid tumors - the leiomyosarcoma when you cut into it would look something like the uterine muscular wall. Here’s what one looks like [under the microscope](http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://radiology.uchc.edu/eAtlas/Images/GYN/5128b.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.gfmer.ch/selected_images_v2/detail_list.php%3Fcat1%3D17%26cat3%3D318%26stype%3Dd&usg=__w4styqodW4KmH-BxpKbv-9JXJBs=&h=324&w=432&sz=145&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=LA0uOWij7RCGhM:&tbnh=133&tbnw=199&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dleiomyosarcoma%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D843%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=478&ei=Qnp4TNn9LYL-8AbOqqn9BQ&oei=Qnp4TNn9LYL-8AbOqqn9BQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=30&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0&tx=116&ty=72). I would hope the Argentine surgeon called in a pathologist to do preliminary dissection (instead of doing it himself) to preserve anatomic landmarks and help determine if margins were clear. Quite possibly they did an intraoperative frozen section to determine malignancy and guide the taking of additional tissue samples to evaluate for possible spread around the abdominal cavity. From the title of the thread I was expecting the tumor to be ovarian - commonly, these develop into large-sized neoplasms, especially in obese women who are slower to notice increasing girth. Not uncommonly the surgery techs will wheel these tumors into the pathology laboratory in carts. It’s not my favorite thing in the world to see rolling in for immediate intraoperative consultation. **Jackmannii** M.D., pathologist. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2010, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-remove-23kg-tumour-from-patient/551501/66 "2010-08-28T04:19:24Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > …It’s not my favorite thing in the world to see rolling in for immediate intraoperative consultation… You prefer them bouncing instead? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2010, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-remove-23kg-tumour-from-patient/551501/67 "2010-08-28T11:51:49Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > > [@Broomstick](#): > > > > If I recall the details on that story (and it’s been a few years) she suffers from one of those disorders that result in prolific benign tumor growth (like neurofibramatosis, proteus syndrome, etc.) > > > [@a thread from a few years ago](#): > > > > Largest Tumor Removed Intact > > The largest tumor ever removed intact was a multicystic mass of the right ovary weighing 137.6 kg (303 lb). The operation, which took over six hours, was performed by Professor Katherine O’Hanlan of Stanford University Medical Center, California, USA. The growth had a diameter of 1 m (3 ft) and was removed in its entirety in October 1991 from the abdomen of an unnamed 34-year-old woman. The patient – who weighed 95 kg (210 lb) after the operation and has made a full recovery – left the operating theater on one stretcher and the cyst left on another. > > [Link!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7202858&postcount=1) Ah, well - it must have been another fantastically large tumor case I was thinking of. There have been a number of them where you might well have said the person was removed from the tumor rather than vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2010, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-remove-23kg-tumour-from-patient/551501/68 "2010-08-28T12:57:18Z")
Possibly you were recalling the case of [Lori Hoogewind](http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/misc/lorihoogewind.html) or [a Romanian woman](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3419373.stm), both of whom had tumors approaching 200 lbs. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2010, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-remove-23kg-tumour-from-patient/551501/69 "2010-08-28T15:00:32Z")
Quite likely. Thanks for finding the names. Maybe next time I’ll remember better 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctors-remove-23kg-tumour-from-patient/551501.md?page=3)