Successful surgery for dangerous brain tumor

(Baonghean) - Nghe An General Hospital has just successfully operated on a dangerous brain tumor thanks to the coordination of the following departments: Internal Neurology, Spinal Neurosurgery and Vascular Intervention Team. By applying the arterial embolization technique to stop bleeding, the brain tumor surgery of a 46-year-old patient was performed safely and smoothly.

Patient Ngan Thi Huong (born in 1969, in Que Phong district) was admitted to the hospital with severe headaches, hemiplegia, memory loss, and a history of epileptic seizures. Through MRI scans, doctors discovered a mass occupying the left parietal region of the brain. Doctors determined that patient Huong had a meningioma in the middle longitudinal sinus compressing the left cerebral hemisphere. The tumor was large and located in a dangerous position, so early surgery was needed.

On October 15, the team of doctors from the Department of Neurology performed an angiography on the patient to evaluate the blood vessels supplying and the impact of the blood vessels supplying the brain tumor. From there, the team clearly determined that the middle meningeal artery supplies about 70% of the blood supply to the tumor, so they performed arterial embolization before brain tumor surgery for patient Huong.

“We use a tiny tube, threaded from the femoral artery, slowly up to the cerebral artery. At the location of the vascular pedicle feeding the tumor, embolic materials are injected into the blood vessel. They will adhere to the vessel wall, stimulate the formation of intravascular blood clots, reduce blood flow velocity, reduce the diameter of the vessel lumen and eventually cause embolism. Embolization before surgery reduces blood flow to the tumor, causing necrosis of the tumor, softening the tumor, shortening the surgery time, and ensuring patient safety,” said Dr. Nguyen Thanh Long, Department of Neurology.

Five days later, on October 20, when patient Huong's health was stable and guaranteed, the team of doctors from the hospital's Spinal Neurosurgery Department successfully and safely removed the patient's entire brain tumor within three hours.

Master Hoang Kim Tuan, Deputy Head of the Department of Spinal Neurosurgery, commented: “The tumor in the meninges of patient Huong is large (5x6x6cm), and is located in the longitudinal sinus, so the number of blood vessels feeding the tumor is large, making the surgical removal of the tumor easy to cause a lot of bleeding. Therefore, using the arterial embolization method to stop bleeding before surgery for large brain tumors is highly effective. When removing the tumor, avoid causing bleeding complications, minimizing the risk of affecting the patient's life on the operating table. If the patient does not receive timely surgery, the tumor will grow larger and larger, greatly affecting health due to complications: weakness in limbs, increased frequency of epileptic seizures, coma, and even death.”

Currently, patient Huong is awake, in stable health and is being closely monitored post-operatively by doctors of the Spinal Neurosurgery Department.

The team is performing surgery.

This is the first time Nghe An General Hospital has performed brain tumor surgery with the coordination of the departments of Vascular Intervention, Neurology and Neurosurgery.

With the orientation of developing high-tech and specialized techniques, from October 2014 to now, the Department of Spinal Neurosurgery has operated on 30 brain tumor cases. Among them, there are difficult and complicated pathological cases such as: craniopharyngioma, cerebellopontine angle tumors, etc.

More unusually, recently, a pregnant woman in her 7th month of pregnancy was admitted to the emergency room and was diagnosed with a large brain tumor in her 7-month pregnancy, a situation that threatened the lives of both the mother and the fetus. However, with close coordination, the Department of Spinal Neurosurgery and the Department of Obstetrics performed a cesarean section to save the baby and a cesarean section to remove the brain tumor to save the mother.

“With the strength of a first-class general hospital of Nghe An province, the specialties regularly coordinate and consult on treatment. The Spinal Neurosurgery Department regularly coordinates with vascular interventional doctors in cases of large tumors with many blood vessels or vascular malformations in the brain, and tries to apply early advanced technology techniques in the field of spinal neurosurgery such as: nerve positioning system, neuroendoscopy system, ultrasonic scalpel... These methods have been developed in major hospitals for many years, the advantage is to help minimize the risk of complications during surgery in large tumors and malformations to reduce post-operative complications, helping patients recover quickly". Master Hoang Kim Tuan shared.

Hoang Yen