Delhi: Doctors successfully perform rare surgery on one-year-old boy

Doctors at a city hospital performed a life-saving surgery on a one-year-old boy suffering from rare neurological disorder dancing eye-dancing feet syndrome.

At just one Ayaan was diagnosed with a rarest of rare condition–a dancing eye-dancing feet syndrome–that causes abnormal jerky movements of the eyes, head, trunk and extremities. With a rare occurrence of 1 in 10 million, this medical condition represents a serious problem with a tumour near the lung and heart arteries.

“Initial assessment of the child revealed a neurological disorder which appears to be the result of auto immune process involving the nervous system. A rare presentation of a tumour originating from neural tissue (neuroblastoma) was diagnosed. MRI of the chest and spine revealed a well defined moderately enhancing tumour close to the side of the chest. The tumour was lying close to the major vessel (aorta),” said Dr Prashant Jain, Consultant, Paediatric Surgery and Paediatric Urology, BLK Super Specialty Hospital.

The challenge for the doctors was to remove the tumour completely without damaging adjacent organs. After much deliberations, doctors decided for the relatively painless minimal invasive surgery as the open surgery was fraught with risks and long hospitalisation. “We explained to the parents of the boy about the risk involved and the need of post operative ventilation. We performed the surgery under general anaesthesia with key hole incisions… Another difficult task was to dissect tumour without damaging adjacent organs,” Jain said.

Ayaan was operated upon in the last week of May and the tumour was successfully removed. He was discharged after two days. “Biopsy and genetic testing confirmed our preoperative diagnosis of neuroblastoma,” the doctor said.