A 3-kg weight in her uterus

After three miscarriages and one unsuccessful open surgery to remove multiple fibroids from her uterus, Sunita Narve (name changed on request), a 31-year-old BPO employee, had lost all hope of having a child. Until a friend suggested laparoscopy. Narve was able to get as many as 24 fibroids removed by the keyhole surgery and save her uterus.

The fibroids cumulatively weighed 2,980 gram and had covered all the walls of Narve’s uterus. “We were under the impression that Narve had a few small fibroids,” said Dr Uddhav Raj, a gynaecological endoscopy and pelvic oncosurgeon, who operated on Narve along with his colleague, Dr Piyush Goyal. “But it turned out to be  complicated. There were several of them and they were huge.” The doctors work at the laparoscopy unit of Wadia Women’s Hospital at Parel.

According to Goyal, the challenge was to preserve the uterus and suture the incisions to ensure that the organ remains functional. “Narve had an open surgery seven years ago which was abandoned after removing a few fibroids,” he said. “It may have been done as the surgeon did not see any option other than removal of the uterus.”

Narve’s fibroids were extracted by an indigenous electronic machine called ‘Fibro-extract’ developed by Raj and Goyal along with bio-medical engineer Sandeep Kulkarni. “We have used such foreign-made machines earlier,” Raj said. “But they are very costly.

After removing three to four fibroids, their blade becomes blunt and needs to be changed.”

The highlight of ‘Fibro extract’ is its re-usability after sterilisation. “The machine could extract all 24 fibroids at one time,” said Raj. Many international journals suggest the removal of only 8-10 fibroids at a time. “But we have proved that that is not necessary,” he said.

Narve, a resident of Dockyard Road who has been married for five years, is now looking forward to conceiving.