City neurosurgeon brings paralyzed patient back to normal

Nagpur: A 22-year-old man was almost paralyzed on one side, couldn’t close one of his eyes and couldn’t speak due to a huge brain tumour pressing on his brain. Dr Mohammad Hussain Bhati, a neurosurgeon at Orange City Hospital and Research Institute (OCHRI), gave him a new lease of life by operating and completely removing the ‘Trigeminal Schwannoma’ tumour, restoring all body functions to normal.
The patient from Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh, had approached the hospital with complaints of headache, vomiting, double vision, limb paralysis, and inability to swallow, eat or speak anything. Dr Bhati told TOI that out of the 12 cranial (brain) nerves, eight nerves were being pressed by the tumour, along with the distal end of the brain called as the brainstem.
“He was thoroughly investigated. His CAT scan showed a big lesion and after doing an MRI, the brain showed a huge but benign or non-cancerous tumour called ‘Trigeminal Schwannoma’. The surgery was risky and challenging since any damage to the cranial nerves or the brainstem tissue could have caused complete paralysis or even death of the patient. However, he could walk on the second day and was discharged on the ninth day after surgery,” said Dr Bhati.
Dr Anup Marar, medical director OCHRI, said Trigeminal Schwannoma was a very rare tumour arising from the fifth cranial nerve and its incidence is 0.07 to 0.3 % of all brain tumours. This patient was paralysed, bed ridden, not speaking and eating anything. Dr Bhati used microscopic surgery technique and used neurosurgical microscope called OPMI VARIO 700. The tumour was separated very delicately from all the brain structures under microscope and safely removed.
Anaesthetists Dr Neeta Deshpande and Dr Sweety Pasari, SMO surgery Dr Kavita Dhurvey along with SMO Wards Dr Anit Prakash, pathologist Dr Milind Pande and radiologists Dr Raju Khandelwal, Dr Nishikant Lokhande and Dr Sudha Ambatkar were part of the team involved in diagnosis and treatment of the disease.
The team of Dr Ashish Shukla, Dr Rani Lakhe, Dr Roshan Jawdekar, Dr Santosh Gadge, Dr Saurabh Rathi and Dr Vasundhara Jain led by Dr Ganesh Bure provided critical care support. Dr Sanil Koyili rendered physiotherapist support.
CUT IT RIGHT
* Patient was suffering from very rare brain tumour called ‘Trigeminal Schwannoma’
* It is a rare tumour with incidence of 0.07 to 0.3% of all brain tumours
* Patient was operated using a microscope since it involved very intricate and careful movement of instruments to remove the tumour
* Patient was paralyzed, couldn’t speak or eat, but got back to normal activities after surgery