A NEWBORN baby girl has been transferred from Mthatha to East London for surgical expertise on a tumour growing on her tailbone.
Health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said the infant, who is less than a week old, was moved from Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital to Cecilia Makiwane Hospital (CMH) because there are no paediatric surgeons at that hospital.
“It’s a minor procedure, even though the tumour is big – it’s as big as a puppy’s head – but her anus is not affected and she can still urinate,” he said.
Kupelo said the child is from one of the villages surrounding Mthatha.
The infant, whose name is not yet known to the Dispatch, is suffering from sacroccoccygeal teratoma, a tumour at the base of the tailbone. The condition affects one in every 35 000 live births.
It is the most common type of tumour in newborns and can grow larger than the rest of the foetus at times. The tumour can be benign or malignant, and girls are two to three times more prone to the condition than boys.
Expert obstetrician Professor Justus Hofmeyr said this was not his field of expertise as, after diagnosis, the baby is looked after by paediatric surgeons. However, he knew that while rare, the condition is the most common tumour a baby can get. “It’s possible to pick it up on a prenatal ultrasound, but sometimes it can be missed,” he said, adding that not every pregnant woman goes for a scan.
Dr Milind Chitnis, the paediatric surgeon at CMH, was still busy with the case and could not shed any light at the time of going to print.
Dr Kim Harper, a principal paediatrician at Frere Hospital, emphasised that this was a surgical condition.
But he said the procedure would require an investigation through CT scans and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to ascertain the size and extent of the tumour as well as which organs it arose from. This information would then be used to plan the surgery.
“The tumour can be very big and the procedure can be complex,” Harper said.
He said he had seen the baby at the nursery when she was transferred. Harper said usually paediatricians diagnose the condition and pass it on to the surgeons but this one was diagnosed in Mthatha as the tumour could not be missed.
“The condition is not that common, I don’t have figures off the top of my head, but we see two to three babies with this condition a year. “It is not clear what the cause is.
“Genetics and environmental factors predispose certain individuals,” he said. —
Baby with tailbone tumour comes to EL
Health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said the infant, who is less than a week old, was moved from Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital to Cecilia Makiwane Hospital (CMH) because there are no paediatric surgeons at that hospital.
“It’s a minor procedure, even though the tumour is big – it’s as big as a puppy’s head – but her anus is not affected and she can still urinate,” he said.
Kupelo said the child is from one of the villages surrounding Mthatha.
The infant, whose name is not yet known to the Dispatch, is suffering from sacroccoccygeal teratoma, a tumour at the base of the tailbone. The condition affects one in every 35 000 live births.
It is the most common type of tumour in newborns and can grow larger than the rest of the foetus at times. The tumour can be benign or malignant, and girls are two to three times more prone to the condition than boys.
Expert obstetrician Professor Justus Hofmeyr said this was not his field of expertise as, after diagnosis, the baby is looked after by paediatric surgeons. However, he knew that while rare, the condition is the most common tumour a baby can get. “It’s possible to pick it up on a prenatal ultrasound, but sometimes it can be missed,” he said, adding that not every pregnant woman goes for a scan.
Dr Milind Chitnis, the paediatric surgeon at CMH, was still busy with the case and could not shed any light at the time of going to print.
Dr Kim Harper, a principal paediatrician at Frere Hospital, emphasised that this was a surgical condition.
But he said the procedure would require an investigation through CT scans and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to ascertain the size and extent of the tumour as well as which organs it arose from. This information would then be used to plan the surgery.
“The tumour can be very big and the procedure can be complex,” Harper said.
He said he had seen the baby at the nursery when she was transferred. Harper said usually paediatricians diagnose the condition and pass it on to the surgeons but this one was diagnosed in Mthatha as the tumour could not be missed.
“The condition is not that common, I don’t have figures off the top of my head, but we see two to three babies with this condition a year. “It is not clear what the cause is.
“Genetics and environmental factors predispose certain individuals,” he said. —
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