Realizing that the tumor is too large, swollen, causing deformation of the patient’s face and neck. If surgery is not removed, the tumor will grow more and more, not only unsightly, causing limited head and neck movement. but also causes skin ulcers due to pressure, infection, tumor rupture, compression of nerves and blood vessels in the neck and face, causing dangerous complications. Therefore, the doctors of the Department of Thoracic Surgery decided to perform surgery to remove the tumor for the patient.
Doctor Than Trong Vu, Head of the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Da Nang Hospital, who directly operated on the patient, said that this was a complicated surgery because the patient was 87 years old and had a spinal injury with sequelae. after 3 strokes.
Furthermore, the tumor is too large in size, located near the head with many structures such as the external carotid artery, facial nerve, branches of the greater auricular nerve, maxillary artery, and superficial temporal artery. .. Therefore, surgery has a very high risk of causing facial paralysis after surgery, bleeding during and after surgery. However, after 2.5 hours of surgery, doctors successfully separated the tumor and the patient had no complications.
Currently, the patient is stable, eating normally, and is very excited and confident about getting rid of the long-standing tumor.
According to Dr. Vu, this tumor is likely to be a parotid salivary gland tumor. The parotid salivary gland is the largest salivary gland in many animals. In humans, there are two parotid salivary glands on each side of the mouth, in front of each ear. The salivary glands secrete saliva to help chew and swallow and start the digestion of food.
Salivary gland tumors include benign tumors and malignant tumors. Of these, the majority are benign tumors, accounting for 80%. However, benign tumors can develop into malignant tumors if they remain in the body for a long time without surgery.