Press Coverage

• A four-year-old Uzbek child suffering from a deadly brain tumor visited India after remaining untreated hospitals in Germany and Russia.
• Given the intensive double surgeries that required absolute precision, Dr. V.S Mehta and his team eliminated the double-sided tumor.

Gurgaon, Jan 24, 2018: In the month of April last year, four-year-old Arnella Khachaturyan fainted in her kindergarten class suffering from a right side paralysis. The brain tumor was detected by the doctors in Tashkent.  In search of optimum treatment for their little daughter, the parents met doctors at Russia and Germany but could not able to attain any definitive solution, before they came to India for treatment. In India, also they visited many private hospitals and were advised various treatments including chemotherapy and radiotherapy but were against opinion for the surgery. Parents choose to undergo radiotherapy in one of the private hospitals in India. However, the child continued to deteriorate even after radiotherapy.

In search of a definitive treatment for their daughter, they met Dr. (Prof.) V.S Mehta, Chairman Neurosciences, Paras Health and their team from Paras Hospitals, Gurgaon where they have advised surgery and with a lot of discussions and counseling, parents agreed to surgery.

Dr.(Prof.) V.S Mehta, Chairman Neurosciences, Paras Health shares “It was a rare case, brain stem glioma and requires delicate analysis of the situation. After diagnosis, the child had 2 separate tumors in the brain stem.We concluded that a double surgery was the only option. We initially removed the right side tumor and after three months, Arnella had to be operated again for removing the tumor situated on the left side of the brain stem. The case was critical and has not been performed in India that often. Biopsy of the tumor was also favorable to the child and likely to have a good long-term prognosis.”

The brainstem is the posterior part of the brain, adjoining and structurally continuous with the spinal cord. Though small, this is an extremely important part of the brain as it controls the flow of messages between the brain and the rest of the body, and it also controls basic body functions such as breathing, swallowing, heart rate, blood pressure, consciousness, and whether one is awake or sleepy. As all the nerves going to the body passes through this small structure and even fraction of millimeter injury can produce major neurological deficits.

A brainstem glioma is a cancerous tumor in the brainstem. Around 75% are diagnosed in children and young adults under the age of twenty but have been known to affect older adults as well.This tumor is not operated by most neurosurgeons in the world and only selected neurosurgeons to operate on selected cases of the brain stem. Dr. Mehta is one of the neurosurgeons who has a vast experience of operating brain stem in the world.

India is globally becoming famous for providing quality treatment, and yet again, another parents’ search across continents was happily addressed by the doctors in India.