Israeli baby undergoes surgery to remove record-size facial tumor

Surgeons in Israel successfully removed a 2.3-inch tumor protruding from the upper jaw of a baby girl immediately after her birth, a Rabin Medical Center spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday.

The tumor was the largest of its kind and location ever described in the medical literature, nearly matching the size of the newborn’s head.

“It is a miracle. We told our baby she has used up all her drama for a lifetime,” her family was quoted as saying by the hospital in Petach Tikvah.

The cesarean section was performed on Nov. 13 by Dr. Yuval Yaniv. In the adjacent room, teams from Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Pediatric Anesthesia, the NICU, Pulmonology, and ENT units stood by, prepared to ensure a safe transition from delivery to surgery.

Dr. Gal Avishai, deputy director of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Rabin Medical Center, elaborated on the complexity of the procedure.

“The primary surgical challenge was to remove a tumor measuring about six centimeters [2.36 inches] when the baby’s head is only about eight centimeters [3.15 inches], while minimizing bleeding,” he explained.

“Infants have a very small blood volume and arterial bleeding from such a tumor can become life-threatening very quickly. Prenatal imaging showed large blood vessels running along the tumor. The surgery required layered ligation of the tumor stalk and meticulous blood control. At the end, the area was sutured, and the baby was transferred to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit,” Avishai added.

After being discharged from the intensive care unit, follow-up examinations showed normal healing at the surgical site, and the baby will continue to be monitored until the eruption of her primary teeth, which are expected to develop normally.

The tumor was first detected when 31-year-old Shiri Ben Ezer Dangoor arrived for a routine fetal weight assessment in the 33rd week of her pregnancy.

The tumor’s location suggested a condition called epulis, which occurs in about one in 200,000 births and is usually detected only after birth.

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