From the age of 12 to 38, Sichuan girl Li Xiu had 14 surgeries on her buttocks, costing 3 million yuan. One of them was specially performed by foreign experts at a huge expense.

From the age of 12 to 38, Sichuan girl Li Xiu (pseudonym) had 14 surgeries on her buttocks, costing 3 million yuan. One of them was specially performed by a foreign expert at a huge expense.

However, after spending so much time and energy on it, I even went in the wrong direction!

26 years later, the tumor in my buttocks has never been cured, and the buttocks still swell and ache repeatedly and pus leaks.

As a young girl, she exudes the stench of abscesses wherever she goes; with a beautiful face, she has a body that is embarrassing for others - her buttocks are of different sizes, with overlapping scars, all the way to her thighs. The skin was dark and dull, and it was unbearable to look at.

It was not until the age of 39 that Li Xiu learned that he had congenital presacral cyst ( teratoma ) with an incidence rate of only 1 in 60,000, and received proper treatment. The cause of

teratoma is not yet clear, but it may be related to factors such as abnormal differentiation of germ cells during the embryonic stage. There are benign and malignant ones.

Benign teratomas can be cured if they can be completely removed.

Teratomas mostly occur in the midline and both sides of the human body, such as testicles, ovaries, sacrum , intracranium, peritoneum and other locations.

Liu Xiu’s teratoma on her sacrum not only caused the size of her buttocks to be different, it also made it difficult for her to urinate, defecate and even become incontinent. It also caused swelling and pain for more than ten years.

Experts said that rare diseases such as sacral teratoma have a high misdiagnosis rate and are often misdiagnosed as perianal abscess and anal fistula. 90% of patients have undergone two surgeries. But it is rare for someone like her to spend more than 3 million yuan on 14 surgeries and still not give up treatment.

According to Li Xiu, the root cause of the disease on her buttocks can be said to be "natural"

When she was born, she had a small blister-shaped mass about the size of a mung bean on her sacrococcygeal area, so she underwent the first surgery in her life when she was 3 months old. One surgery. But the surgery did not completely remove the tumor.

As she grew older, she underwent multiple surgeries, large and small, at different age groups. She even spent 200,000 US dollars for diagnosis and treatment by foreign experts. The cost of treatment before and after was close to 3 million, but she did not change this "ordinary" thing. Benign tumors are completely cured.

And Li Xiu's disease diagnosis has been changing in the past thirty years: from a mass on the body surface at birth, to a benign mass in the sacrococcygeal area, to bone tuberculosis , osteomyelitis, anal fistula... Every expert spoke so eloquently that she seemed to see hope of surgical cure, but her hope soon came to nothing.

's frequent surgeries and recurrences not only brought a huge financial burden to the family, but also caused her physical and mental torture.

Experts from Zhongshan Sixth Hospital said that because teratoma is extremely rare, with only one in 60,000 occurrence probability, many hospitals and institutions lack relevant clinical experience. Doctors do not understand or even recognize this disease, so they cannot give an accurate diagnosis. . Wrong surgical treatment not only has little effect, but also causes 100% recurrence.

In recent years, less than 10% of the teratoma patients admitted to Zhongshan Hospital were diagnosed for the first time. More than 90% of the patients have repeated and multiple treatment experiences like Li Xiu, and many patients have lost the opportunity for the best treatment because of this. opportunity. Just like Li Xiu's 14 consecutive surgeries caused irreversible damage to body tissues and made her local anatomical relationships more complex and disordered, posing numerous difficulties and risks to future treatments.

Knowing the truth, Li Xiu, who was almost collapsed, just wanted to have surgery quickly to get rid of the tumor, no matter what the cost.

However, her preoperative examination conditions were not optimistic. The difficulty of the operation was at the 'super difficult' level in surgery:

Long-term lesions caused serious damage to the affected area, with huge tumors, unclear boundaries, small local space, and close relationship with the rectum. , coupled with repeated surgeries, Li Xiu's buttocks have long lost their original anatomical features, with widely distributed irregular scars, obvious local redness, swelling, and circulation, and complex and disordered anatomical relationships, which undoubtedly greatly increased the difficulty of the operation.How should

surgery be done? Issues such as whether to approach through the abdominal cavity or through the sacrococcyx, whether the anus and rectum can be preserved, and how to deal with huge perineal defects all presented challenges to the expert team. Even Li Xiu herself said that as long as the tumor can be removed, any kind of sacrifice of the anus and rectum is acceptable. Experts also hope to fight for her again and achieve perfection.

After a series of careful preoperative discussions and rehearsals, the medical team decided to carry out radical surgery for presacral cysts from the sacrococcyx.

But in the end, the tumor with a diameter of 13x12x10 cm that had troubled Li Xiu for many years was completely removed. And successfully saved the rectum, anus and other body tissues. At this point, Li Xiu can finally work and live a healthy life like a normal person.

If diagnosed correctly early and operated on time, Li Xiu could have lived a happier and healthier life for more than 20 years. But unfortunately, there is no "if" and no "regret medicine" for anything. All we can do is to write Li Xiu's story. Come on down and save the next patient with a presacral cyst.

Here, experts also specifically remind patients and colleagues to pay special attention to the following points when diagnosing and treating presacral cysts:

1. Presacral cysts have very deep lesions, and half of the patients are asymptomatic. Digital anal examination, MRI, CT and other examinations can Help with diagnosis. Presacral cysts often appear as missing and fused coccyx, reduced sacrum curvature, and cysts of varying sizes and irregular shapes on MRI images.

2. If you are diagnosed with perianal abscess or anal fistula, and the recurrence persists after surgical treatment, you need to be more vigilant. It is recommended to go to a higher-level medical institution and seek help from a more professional doctor to prevent missed or misdiagnosed presacral cysts.

3. Surgery is the only effective way at present. Presacral cyst cannot be cured by conservative treatment such as taking medicine. Don’t listen to the so-called folk remedies. Surgery is necessary. "