US medics remove Romanian's mega-tumour

A medical team led by a renowned US plastic surgeon began a marathon operation in Bucharest today to remove a 176lb benign tumour from a Romanian woman.

The 46-year-old patient, Lucica Bunghez, suffers from neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder which causes tumours to grow on the body.

Her tumour, which covers much of her back and runs halfway down her thighs, weighs twice as much as she would weigh without it – 88 pounds, doctors said.

A former cake seller from the Transylvanian town of Brasov, Bunghez has been bedridden and unable to care for herself for three years due to the growing tumour, which absorbs blood and nutrients like a giant parasite.

The medical team, led by Dr McKay McKinnon, a reconstructive surgeon from the University of Chicago Hospital, was expected to take 15 to 20 hours, said Dr Ioan Lascar, a Romanian doctor assisting in the surgery.

Lascar said there is a risk of massive haemorrhaging when the giant tumour is cut away from the body.

McKinnon, who is accompanied by another American surgeon, two anaesthesiologists and two nurses, offered his services for free after the Romanian government said it could not afford the fees needed to send Bunghez to the United States for the surgery.

The medical team said it was the second-largest tumour to ever be surgically removed – an operation the Romanian medical establishment was unable to handle without outside expertise and equipment.

In 2000, McKinnon removed a 200lb tumour caused by the same disorder from a woman from Wyoming.

The American team and Dr Lascar yesterday successfully operated on a 19-year-old Romanian woman who was suffering from a facial tumour caused by neurofibromatosis.