Specialists at Hyderabad based Prime Hospitals have treated a rare case of benign tumour of thymus gland in a 25 year old man from Rayalaseema in Andhra Pradesh.

A team of doctors led by Dr S Vengal Reddy, performed the complex surgery last week and successfully removed a 2.8 kilograms (kg) of massive tumour of thymus gland from the patient Saddam Hussain who was suffering from constant chest pain and breathing problem.

Before coming to the hospital for treatment the patient was suffering from typical symptoms of progressive shortness of breath, chest pain and dry cough. He sought the help of local physicians to get over the ailment and was administered with bronchodilators, analgesics and cough suppressants. All this was of no avail and his condition persisted for over six months. During a medical examination recently for a job in Kuwait, the doctor there suspected some abnormality and advised the patient to seek specialist medical help. It was at this stage he approached the specialists at Prime Hospitals.  On examination at the hospital, he was found to have no history of fever, muscle weakness and his general physical examination was normal.

To find out the exact cause of the problem the doctors conducted a battery of tests including imaging techniques like CT and MRI and ‘Fine needle aspiration cytology’ was performed to diagnose the condition preoperatively. The test indicated the presence of a huge tumour of Thymus gland, but was found to be benign.

Having learned this, the doctors narrowed down for surgery as the optimum option, as no conservative or medical therapy would ameliorate the patient’s condition. Finally the tumour was retrieved which was almost 7 times the size of the heart and occupied 2/3 of the thoracic cavities. Because of compression the tumour created the lungs collapsed leading to breathlessness.

According to doctors, the formation of benign tumour of the thymus gland is a rare case. First such tumour was reported in 1916 and till now 200 such cases were reported across the world. This patient named Saddam Hussian had a tumour of 2.8 kilograms and it is the second heaviest tumour reported in the world.  The heaviest was 6 kgs in a Korean patient. Normal thymus gland in children and adolescents weighs about 15 to 55 grams.