To analyse and identify possible outcomes of elective cancer surgeries performed at a tertiary cancer centre during COVID19 pandemic. This is a retrospective study including patients that underwent surgery at HCG Manavata cancer centre, Nashik, Maharashtra, India, from 15 March 2020 to 15 June 2020. Among the 458 patients that underwent elective surgeries, 54% were male and 46% were female, with a median age of 50.57 years. The most common sites of cancer distribution were head and neck (24.67%), colorectal (11.57%), gynaecological (11.35%), and breast (10.26%). Of the included patients, 92% were of American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) II with comorbidities such as hypertension, and 64% underwent major surgeries with a mortality rate of 1.52% (
n
= 7). Average duration of surgery and hospital stay was observed to be 168.43 min and 4.4 days, respectively. Post-operatively, 7 patients were tested COVID positive and their recovery was uneventful. Despite the difficulty that set in because of COVID19 pandemic, it was proven from our study that elective cancer care surgeries can be successfully performed by following all the set guidelines.
Astroblastoma is an uncommon neuroepithelial primary tumor of the brain which is of uncertain origin. We present a case of high-grade astroblastoma in an 18-year-old female with a severe headache, loss of appetite, vomiting and generalized weakness. The patient had undergone a right frontoparietal craniotomy. Large subfalcine meningioma was excised. The lesion was suspected to be a meningioma. Primary radiological investigation revealed a 6.8 cm × 5.8 cm × 5.4 cm lesion. Although the radiological and intraoperative findings were of an extra-axial tumor, the histology and immunophenotype was of an astroblastoma. The patient was treated with cyclophosphamide, cisplatin and etoposide chemotherapy regimen. The patient was later treated with bi-weekly bevacizumab. The patient had improved symptomatically post-chemotherapy. However, there was no significant difference in lesion size. The patient died after 2 weeks. The prognosis of patients with astroblastoma is extremely poor as observed in our case.
Pulmonary blastoma is a rare form of lung cancer with a reported incidence of 0.25–0.55 of primary pulmonary cancers. Pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB) is a common finding in children while it is rarely found in adults. In the past few years, the incidence of a second primary tumour has increased to 3.5% followed by third primary tumour at 0.5% and fourth tumour at 0.3%. The clinical significance of diagnosing and distinguishing a secondary primary tumour is often challenging. As per our knowledge, this is the first case of metachronous PPB in an adult patient previously diagnosed with endometrial cancer.
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