Clinical experience of the treatment of giant congenital benign tumours of the back

Abstract

Congenital giant benign tumours of the back are rarely seen or reported. They pose two challenges to plastic surgeons: copious intraoperative bleeding, and an extensive raw area left after removal of the tumour. We have treated five cases of congenital giant benign tumour of the back. The largest was a neurofibroma in a woman, which weighed 36.29 kg and she had 10,000 ml of blood transfused to replace the blood loss during operation. We achieved total excision of the tumours in all cases and covered the extensive wounds with skin harvested from the tumours themselves in one stage. Among the five cases, four were neurofibromas and one was a giant naevus. All grafted skin took, and there were no recurrences. The tumours were radically excised in one stage and the extensive wounds covered with the skin with good take and no risk of recurrence.

Key Words::

• Benign tumour
• neurofibroma
• giant naevus
• vascularity

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Khoo Boo-Chai (Singapore) for his help in the preparation of the manuscript.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.