King Abdulaziz Specialist Hospital in Taif operated on a newly-born baby to remove a large tumor from its neck in a surgery considered to be one of the rarest of its kind in the world.

“The doctors discovered a large tumor obstructing the blood circulation and constricting the blood vessels. The tumor measuring 10x9x8 cm was lodged in the neck of the newborn baby,” Siraj Al-Hamaidan, spokesperson of Ministry of Health in Taif governorate said on Sunday.

He said that the baby had been kept in a ventilator in the ICU prior to the operation. “The tumor was cancerous and had spread to multiple tissues including the thyroid gland,” he said.

Dr. Jamal Saeed, a pediatric surgery expert, supervised the surgery with a score of doctors including Amjad, Shaban, Rayee Khan, Hamida Jameel, Jaber Osman and other consultants at the hospital.

Al-Hamaidan termed the occurrence of the cancerous tumor in a newborn baby a rare case and said that the Ministry of Health will carry out a detailed study with the assistance of a research institute to study the possibility of chemotherapy.