Photo: Model of the lower jaw of a hyaitian woman with a tumor.
American surgeons removed a giant tumor of the lower jaw, which has grown to a mass of 1.9 kilograms in 11 years
Lorette Pierre, 38, lives in a remote mountainous area in southern Haiti. About 11 years ago, a tumor appeared in her mouth, which gradually grew during this time. It was not possible to remove it, since there is practically no access to highly qualified medical care in the country. As a result, the tumor reached such a size that the lumen of the Haitian woman's airways narrowed to four millimeters, and in order to take small amounts of food she had to dislocate her lower jaw.
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In 2009, Pierre met with Judy Foster, founder of the Harvest House Haiti charity. Despite the devastating earthquake at the time in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, Foster found a surgeon willing to help the Haitian woman in her home country, but severe bleeding prevented the operation from completing.
Oral and maxillofacial surgeon Vishtasb Broumand from Halifax Medical Center in Daytona Beach, Florida, was treating the victims of the earthquake. As he was about to fly home from Haiti, a doctor approached him, noticing the logo of the College of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons on his shirt, and showed him a photograph of Pierre. Interested in this case, Bruman, with the help of a charitable organization, raised funds for the treatment of a Haitian woman in the United States and invited her for treatment at his clinic.
Due to the inability to eat normally, the woman's body weight at that time was only 36 kilograms, so the doctors had to inject her nutrients until she gained another five kilograms, which is necessary to undergo the intervention.
During the operation, Bruman removed the woman's tumor that had engulfed part of the mandibular bone and teeth, and restored her facial skeleton using a titanium construction. Histological examination of the tumor showed that it is a giant cementum - an extremely rare hereditary benign neoplasm of the tooth.
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The operation was successful, and Pierre gained the ability to speak freely, breathe and consume food. During the recovery period, her body weight recovered to the values corresponding to the growth.
On June 21, a fully recovered Haitian woman returned home to her husband and six children, one of whom had never seen a mother without a tumor.