Doctors save woman with rare thyroid tumor near chest wall

A 50-year-old woman had a rare tumor that generated from her thyroid but had grown all the way to the chest wall removed last week, the Shanghai Cancer Center announced on Wednesday.

Doctors from the hospital removed the tumor, weighing nearly 10 kilograms, last Wednesday, the center revealed.

The patient had a lump on the left side of the neck when she was in her 20's. The lump started to grow and was diagnosed as thyroid cancer in 2007 but doctors failed to remove the entire tumor since it was located near major blood vessels.

The remaining cancerous tissues started to grow at the end of last year, forcing the patient to seek help from various hospitals.

In July, she visited Dr Ji Qinghai of the Shanghai Cancer Center's neck surgery department.

Doctors found that the leftover cancerous tissues of the thyroid cancer had grown all the way to the left chest, pressing her left breast.

Doctors spent six hours in the surgery last Wednesday to remove the entire tumor and cleaned up all the cancerous tissues.

The patient gradually recovered and was discharged on Wednesday.