A team of doctors undertook the daunting operation of removing a big tumour from the tongue of a 36-year-old woman, mother of two children from Song Song village situated at Mao Gate, Senapati district on November 17.
Two weeks after the major operation, the patient is absolutely hale and hearty, and has started accepting liquids orally and can speak although with some difficulty, stated a release.
The team of doctors was led by associate professor and HOD, department of Plastic Surgery, RIMS, Imphal Dr AK Ibohal Singh along with Dr P Manisana, assistant professor Dr Angelica L, Senior Resident, ENT Dr Manish R, it stated.
It further stated that the operation lasted for seven hours as there was a big tumour in the tongue (4.1 x3.7x3.2 cm) administering anaesthesia was not easy. A team of anaesthesiologists led by professor S Sarat Singh and Dr I Joyshankar performed an awake fiberoptic nasal intubation to put the patient to sleep.
After removing 60 per cent of the tongue along with all the draining lymph nodes from the neck, the plastic surgeons harvested tissues from the forearm known as free radial artery forearm flap, folded it upon itself into the shape of a tongue and fix it to the remainder of the tongue with sutures, it stated.
Thereafter, to restore blood flow to the flap, the blood vessels in the flap (Radial Artery and Cephalic vein) were joined one by one to the blood vessels in the neck (Facial Artery and External Jugular vein) by the technique of micro vascular anastomosis using the microscope, it mentioned.
The operation was made possible with the whole harvested team efforts of doctors, theatre nurses (Nursing Officers, Ch Rita Devi, M Pramod), OT technicians and other ancillary staff, it added.
