132-pound ovarian tumor removed from Connecticut woman (with pic!)

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A 132-pound ovarian tumor was removed from a 38-year-old Connecticut woman this year, according to two doctors involved in the case. The patient, who wished to remain anonymous, reported that the tumor began growing at a rate of about 10 pounds per week in November. A medical team, including 12 surgeons, removed it in a five-hour procedure February 14 at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut, according to Dr. Vaagn Andikyan, a gynecologic oncologist for Western Connecticut Health Network and a lead surgeon on the case.

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"Ovarian mucinous tumors tend to be big," he said. "But tumors this big are exceedingly rare in the literature. It may be in the top 10 or 20 tumors of this size removed worldwide."

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One of the largest tumors ever taken out of a human was a 303-pound ovarian tumor removed at Stanford Hospital in 1991, according to a 1994 report.

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In the newly reported case, physicians removed the 132-pound tumor as well as 6 pounds of abdominal wall tissue and excess skin that had been stretched by the tumor. The doctors also had to reconstruct the patient's abdomen, which had become disfigured due to the mass, according to Chuang.

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"When I first walked into the examination room, I found this 38-year-old malnourished patient with a weight of 350 pounds and extensive tumor that was about 100 centimeters [39 inches] large. I saw fear in the patient's eyes. She was so hopeless, because she had seen several other doctors, and they were unable to help her," Andikyan said.

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"The good part about this story is, we were able to save her reproductive organs," he said. "As of right now, she's not interested in having more children, but she wanted to have the opportunity, and we were very careful to avoid damage to underlying reproductive organs."

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Now, almost three months since the surgery, the patient is recovering well and has returned to work as a teacher. "We wanted to let people know, but we wanted to wait until the patient was really doing well in the postoperative period. And it's been three months, and she's really doing great," Chuang said.

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