Infant from B'desh with cyst larger than size of his head undergoes successful surgery at AIIMS

New Delhi: A three-month-old boy from Bangladesh, suffering from a rare congenital condition, got a new lease of life after doctors at AIIMS here removed a protruding part of his brain which had turned into a giant cyst, larger than the size of his head.

Giant Occipital Encephalocele is a rare congenital condition in which there is a big sac-like protrusion or projection of the brain and the membranes that cover it through an opening in the skull.

If left untreated, the giant cyst can rupture, causing meningitis and then death, Dr Deepak Kumar Gupta, Professor of the Department of Neurosurgery at AIIMS said.

During the three-hour long surgery, doctors removed the cyst and also "covered the functional part of the brain by expanding the skull."

"Large swelling from behind the skull causes difficulty in positioning of the baby, difficulty in feeding and nursing and there is always a fear of sudden rupture of the swelling containing brain tissues," he said.

Dr Gupta said the father of the child Abid Azad, Development Outreach and Communication Specialist, USAID, Bangladesh, had approached him a couple of months back.

"After evaluating the baby's condition, we decided to perform the surgery. On December 12, the surgery was done during which the non-functional protruding part of the brain which had taken the shape of a cyst was excised, all normal brain tissues were preserved and expansile cranioplasty was done at same time giving space to brain to continue to grow in future," Dr Gupta said.

Six days after the surgery, the child Arhat Aydin is doing well and is likely to be discharged on Monday.