02-07-2025
Doctors remove tumor the 'size of a young child' from man's leg in groundbreaking operation
Doctors have removed a massive cancerous tumor the size of a young child from a man's leg.
Mohd Salman, a 27-year-old from India, was diagnosed in 2019 with chondrosarcoma, a slow-growing cancer that forms in the connective tissue that protects the bones.
For more than five years, the tumor in his leg grew slowly without causing him any pain.
However, within the last six months, Salman's tumor ballooned in size to 76.5 pounds (34.7 kilograms), measuring four by two feet long - roughly the same weight as an eight-year-old child.
Salman, a former laborer, was robbed of his ability to walk and completely bedridden in excruciating pain.
After a handful of doctors across the Delhi and Uttar Pradesh areas of India failed to help Salman, orthopedic surgeon Dr Mohit Dhingra of AIMS Rishikesh hospital led the charge to remove the massive growth.
On June 9, 2025, Dr Dhingra and his team removed the tumor entirely in a brutal six-hour operation.
Dr Dhingra said: 'This was one of the most challenging operations we've taken on. The sheer weight and complexity of the tumor pushed our team to the edge of medical precision.'
Chondrosarcoma is made up of cells in the cartilage, firm tissue that protects the end of the bones.
It's most often found in the pelvis, hip or shoulder, though it can form in the spine in rare cases.
The disease makes up one in four bone cancer cases in the U.S., adding up to 1,300 every year. The condition kills about one in five patients within the first five years.
It's unclear if Salman's cancer spread to other organs or tissues, which could make his disease more difficult to treat.
While chemotherapy and radiation can help control the spread of aggressive forms of chondrosarcoma, the main treatment is surgery.
Salman's doctors first had to perform an MRI and an angiography, which visualizes blood vessels and arteries, to make sure they didn't hit any major structures during the operation.
One wrong move could have led to severe bleeding and damage to any nearby organs.
After six hours, doctors were able to remove the entire tumor with no complications.
Hospital leadership have called the operation a landmark moment.
Professor Meenu Singh, AIIMS-Rishikesh executive director, praised the surgical team's success, noting that it has raised the bar for handling extreme cases of rare cancers.
Though the tumor was massive, it is dwarfed in comparison to other growths in medical literature. The largest tumor ever recorded, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was 328 pounds (148.6).
The growth was an ovarian tumor removed from a 43-year-old woman in 1906.
More recently, in 2022, doctors in Brazil removed a 100-pound tumor from a 45-year-old woman after it grew for five years. It is unclear what kind of tumor it was.
Salman is still hospitalized more than three weeks after the surgery and may need rehabilitation to learn how to walk and perform daily tasks again.
He said: 'The doctors didn't just remove a tumor - they gave me my life back.'
