Organs removed and replaced in breakthrough op

DOCTOR Tomoaki Kato had to remove a lot more than a cancerous tumour during an unprecedented operation on a 63-year-old Florida woman.

To get to the tumour, deep in Brooke Zepp’s abdomen, which threatened to kill her within months, the transplant specialist said he first had to remove her stomach, pancreas, spleen, liver and intestines.

The organs were chilled outside Zepp’s body during a 15-hour operation at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Centre on March 4. They were re-implanted after the tumour — two inches in diameter and wrapped around Zepp’s aorta and the base of two other arteries — was removed.