Baby's cancer removed while in mother's womb

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Baby's cancer removed while in mother's womb

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A tumour in the mouth of the baby, while in mother's womb, was removed in the US.

24 June,2012 07:41 am

An unborn baby girl in the US was detected with an extremely rare cancerous tumour in the mouth, but doctors successfully removed it in one of the worlds first such surgeries in the womb.Leyna Gonzalez was born healthy five months later.She is now nearly two years old, and the only sign of cancer is a tiny scar on her mouth.Her mother Tammys pregnancy scan at 17 weeks showed Leyna had an aggressive mouth tumour. It looked like the baby was blowing a bubble.Doctors said it was a rare tumour called an oral teratoma, and that there was little chance Leyna would survive.Surgeons used a laser to cut the tumour from Leynas lips after pushing a super-fine needle into Tammys womb for the hour-long operation at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida.Details of the case have been published in US medical journal Obstetrics and Gynaecology.