Mohali, Nov, 14: Doctors at Fortis Hospital Mohali have removed a 14-cm kidney tumour along with a thrombus extending into a major vein from a 62-year-old patient, the hospital said. The operation was led by Dr Dharmender Aggarwal, who used the Da Vinci Xi robotic platform to perform a Robotic Radical Nephrectomy with IVC Thrombectomy—one of the most technically demanding procedures in uro-oncology.
The patient, who had been passing blood in his urine for ten days, was found to have a large right-kidney tumour with a tumour thrombus involving the renal vein and the inferior vena cava, a major vessel that carries blood to the heart. Following a PET scan and other investigations, Dr Aggarwal recommended robot-aided surgery as the safest line of treatment.
Doctors said the tumour’s proximity to the heart made it a high-risk case. “The tumour involved a large vein going towards the heart, which posed a risk that the tumour thrombus could get dislodged and go into the heart, causing a cardiac arrest,” Dr Aggarwal said. He added that his team “dissected the entire IVC and took control at three points to avoid any such problem.”
The patient walked eight hours after the surgery and was discharged after three days, according to the hospital.
Explaining the advantages of robotic procedures, Dr Aggarwal said the system allows quicker mobility and shorter hospital stays compared with open surgery. “With the help of newer technologies, we are now able to remove only the tumour and save the kidney in most cases,” he said. Robot-aided surgery, he added, offers a magnified 3D view and 360-degree instrument movement, allowing surgeons to operate in areas inaccessible to the human hand.
Fortis Mohali said Dr Aggarwal has performed more than 700 robotic surgeries and has trained in complex cancer and robot-aided surgeries in London.
