56-pound tumor removed from woman in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Doctors were shocked when they looked into a woman's uterus searching for an orange-size tumor but found something that resembled a giant rock instead.

Surgeons ended up removing a 56-pound tumor from the 54-year-old woman. The tumor was 19 inches across.

"At first sight, one could see it was going to be a big tumor, but not that big," said Dr. Oscar Lopez, leader of the surgical team that operated on the woman at Gandulfo Hospital in the city of Lomas de Zamora.

"We were totally shocked," Lopez added Thursday in discussing the procedure conducted this year.

It was big, but not the biggest. News stories and medical reports say that was a 303-pound ovarian cyst removed in 1991 in California.

A biopsy determined the growth removed at Gandulfo Hospital was a malignant tumor, and the patient is being monitored.

The woman, who prefers to remain anonymous, weighed 343 pounds at the time of the surgery, which lasted four hours and involved eight surgeons.