SHELLY BEACH - A KwaZulu-Natal team of doctors has achieved a groundbreaking medical milestone, removing a brain tumour without a single external incision.
A first in the region, the complex operation known as Endoscopic Endonasal Transsphenoidal Pituitary Tumour Resection, was performed by a team of surgeons at Shelly Beach Hospital.
Yandisa Nxakama, a neurosurgeon at the hospital, said the achievement signalled a new era of world class healthcare for the region.
The doctors used a camera system inserted through the nose into the base of the brain where the tumour was located.
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“The tumour that we operated grows from a gland in the brain called the pituitary gland,” Nxakama explained.
If left untreated, Nxakama said the tumour’s continued growth can interfere with the normal body functions and less hormones in the pituitary gland are produced because of the compression.
While the procedure is not new, he said it was an important milestone for the development of the advanced healthcare services in our institution.
"It demonstrates that the hospital is well equipped with modern surgical techniques.”
While Shelly Beach Hospital doesn’t have a tumour burden compared to public hospitals, Nxakama said it was a concern that public service patients are unable to access the treatment.
“In KZN, for many years it was just the Nkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital that does this procedure. It’s only recently that they have opened another public sector at Greys Hospital where neurosurgery patients can be treated.”