Nigerian doctors construct new bladder for cancer patient

– A cancer patient received a new bladder at the university teaching hospital in Bauchi – His bladder had to be removed due to the cancer in his system – The procedure saved he life of the student In what might be considered a ground breaking operation, a team of surgeons at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Teaching Hospital in Bauchi constructed a new bladder for a cancer patient. Premium Times reports that Saidu Ibrahim who is the recipient of the bladder is a student at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University and was diagnosed having malignant cells in the tissues of his bladder.

In order to save the 18-year-old student’s life, doctors had to carry out an operation to remove his bladder and construct a new bladder for him.

The operation was led by Haruna Usman and also on the team was Dr. Makama Salihu who is the head of surgery at the university. Mr Usman said that due to the cancer, the patient was always passing out blood whenever he urinated. “When we evaluated Ibrahim, we discovered that he had a mass in the bladder, so he had to go through various screening such as intravenous pyelogram, (series of x-rays of the kidney, ureters and bladder), biopsy (removal of cell tissues so that they can be viewed under the microscope by a pathologist), and Cystoscopy, which is a diagnostic procedure where a hollow lighted tube is used to look inside the bladder.”

“All these procedures were conducted to establish whether there were cancerous cells or not ‎in his situation, the aim was to control the tumour from spreading because there was a spread of the tumour into the pipes that link urine between the kidney and bladder” “The aim of this procedure is to give him the best option because there is no cure for cancer. What we did for him was to control the tumour from spreading and increase his chance of survival and that we have achieved so far. The second part of the procedure was to remove the bladder and refashion a new bladder for him.”