Surgeons have removed a previously inoperable brain tumour from a patient by performing keyhole surgery through her eye socket.
Mother-of-three Ruvimbo Kaviya, 40, had a meningioma removed from the space located beneath the brain and behind the eyes.
The operation at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is the first of its kind in the UK.
It will give new hope to patients whose cancers were previously seen as inoperable because of where the tumours are situated – in an area called the cavernous sinus.
Similar surgeries have already been performed following the procedure in Leeds.
These types of operations previously involved taking off a large part of the skull and moving the brain to access the tumour, which can lead to serious complications including seizures.
Ms Kaviya said she did not even think about being the first UK patient to undergo such a procedure because the tumour was causing such severe headaches
She said: “It was the first time they were doing the procedure. I had no option to agree because the pain was just too much – I didn’t even think about it being the first time, all I needed was for it to be removed.
“There’s a first time to everything. So you never know, this might be the best chance for me to have it. And it was.”
On her recovery, she added: “When I had the operation I thought I was possibly going to stay in the hospital for weeks or months and I was home in days.
“I had double vision for about three months but everything else was OK.”
Experts practised the surgery multiple times by using 3D models of Ms Kaviya’s head.
The surgery, known as an endoscopic trans-orbital approach, took just three hours and Ms Kaviya, a nurse in Leeds, was up and walking around later the same day.
She has been left with a tiny scar near her left eye.
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Neurosurgeon Mr Asim Sheikh said: “There’s been a move towards minimally invasive techniques over the last few years or so, with the advancement of technology, tools, 3D innovation, it is now possible to do the procedures with less morbidity, and that means the patients recover quicker and better.”
He said traditional methods to get to the place where the tumour was situated requires “pressing on quite a lot of brain”.
“Whereas this way, we’re not even sort of touching the brain,” Mr Sheikh said.
“So it just reaches us in areas which are once thought to be inoperable, but now are accessible.”
