Surgery that saved girl with ‘impossible’ cancer tumour

Doctors used 3D model of growth to plot astonishing 6-hour operation

A SCHOOLGIRL with an ‘impossible tumour’ which cancer surgeons said could not be removed is on the path to recovery after her pioneering medical team created a 3d model of the massive growth.

leah Bennett, who is now seven, had a 3½in (9cm) tumour wrapped around her spine and key blood vessels which chemotherapy had been unable to shrink.

A panel of experts from leading children’s hospitals concluded it would be too risky to attempt surgery.

But her mother Claire – who had lost her own mother to the same disease weeks earlier – begged leah’s doctors at Alder hey hospital in liverpool not to condemn her to watch her daughter die as well.

In what her surgical team believe is a UK first for a soft tissue tumour, they used 3d printing technology and a high resolution scanner to construct a detailed model of the tumour in order to work out if they could remove it.

They told Mrs Bennett and her NHS manager husband Stephen that even if leah went under the knife, there was only a 20 per chance they could cut it out – and even if they did, there was a 50-50 chance she would bleed to death or be left paralysed.

Faced with a one in ten chance of success, the couple agreed the attempt should go ahead and leah went into surgery on August 1 last year.

‘At that point we didn’t know whether that would be the last time we would ever see our daughter alive,’ her mother said yesterday.

Thankfully, the operation was a complete success, with the surgeons – Jo Minford and four colleagues – removing 95 per cent of the tumour. After a fortnight at Alder hey, leah was allowed back to the family’s St helens home.

She then faced radiotherapy to eradicate more of the growth, but amazingly was able to return to primary school for the start of the new school year.

After the 12-month battle which turned the family’s lives upside down, her parents decided to share her story as they attempt to raise money through their online link Team leah – Fighting Back Against Cancer for the 20 different charities which helped them. They also hope to inspire families who may face similar ordeals.

‘The bravery of the surgical team to … attempt surgery when all other hospitals around the country said “no” is beyond inspiring,’ said Mr Bennett, 39. ‘They put their professional reputations on the line.’ leah, who has a tenyear-old sister, Phoebe, began complaining of a sore back in november 2018.

After seeing her GP and enduring a battery of hospital tests her oncologist confirmed the tumour was a retroperitoneal sarcoma – and that it was wrapped around blood vessels, including the aorta.

By April it was clear that chemotherapy was not shrinking the tumour and a panel of surgeons from Great ormond Street and Manchester children’s hospitals concluded operating would not be in leah’s ‘best interests’.

But in June came the meeting at Alder hey which was to change their lives when the surgeons produced the model of the tumour. ‘I could barely look at it,’ Mrs Bennett said. ‘It was the enemy.’

The surgery took six hours but leah, now seven, is returning to full health though she will need regular three-monthly checks.

her surgeon, Jo Minford, said: ‘ We worried that by operating we would rob her parents of another six months or a year with her.’ Seeing leah now makes her feel ‘quite emotional’, the surgeon added. ‘It makes me proud … to have done something that people said we couldn’t do.’

‘Reputations on the line’