Berlin - A 53-year old German man is recovering after having a tumour weighing 12 kilograms removed from his stomach, surgeons at a clinic in the southern city of Ravensburg said Monday. The tumour had grown in the patient's abdominal cavity for a number of years and had not been visible from the outside, said chief surgeon at the St. Elisabeth Hospital, Professor Ekkehard Jehle.
The patient first noticed something amiss when he experienced numbness and difficulty in bending down, as well as a loss of appetite.
The man is expected to make a full recovery and lead a normal - if somewhat lighter - life. Before the operation, he weighed 67 kilograms, afterwards a mere 55.
In April, German doctors removed an 18-kilogram tumour from a Saudi Arabian woman, which was believed to have been the largest ever successfully treated.
