Chinese woman "loses" 15 kg as super-tumor removed

Chinese woman "loses" 15 kg as super-tumor removed
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese doctors operating on a womanwith abdominal pain expected to find an inflamed appendix butdiscovered a football-sized 15-kg (33-lb) tumor instead, aBeijing daily reported on Thursday.
Surgeons at the capital's Chaoyang Dongba hospital spent 30minutes removing the tumor from Xiao Wen's abdomen, the BeijingTimes said. It measured 40 cm (16 in) by 30 cm (12 in) and isbelieved to have been benign.
"It's just unbelievable, who would have thought a stomachcould have such a large tumor?" the 21-year-old's father said.
One surgeon who operated on Xiao Wen said he had not seensuch a large abdominal tumor in more than 20 years of medicine.
"If it hadn't been taken out in time, it could havespontaneously burst, threatening her health," the paper quotedhim as saying.
Her family had not noticed anything wrong with Xiao Wen'sstomach as, at 114 kg (251 lb), she was already "comparativelyfat," the paper said.
Xiao Wen, whose weight ballooned after she developed alymphatic disorder as a child, said before the operation thatshe hoped it "could help her lose weight"
(Reporting by Ian Ransom; editing by Roger Crabb)