12-year-old from New York was diagnosed with a tumor while on vacation in Greece and underwent successful surgery at the "Agia Sophia" Children's Hospital

This is the case of 12-year-old Maria, who lives in New York and was in Greece for vacation with her family. During her stay in the country, a tumor was detected, requiring immediate medical treatment.

Her parents, as Mr. Themistocleous reports, decided to trust Greek doctors and have the surgery performed at the “Agia Sophia” Children’s Hospital. The operation was particularly demanding and lasted 6.5 hours, with the little patient undergoing a difficult surgical procedure by the hospital’s medical team.

“A story that shows in practice that Greece has medical expertise and people who are leading the way internationally,” the Deputy Minister of Health said in his post.

At the same time, he expressed his warmest congratulations to the doctors, the nursing staff and all the employees of the “Agia Sophia” Children’s Hospital for their contribution to the successful handling of the incident. “Greece has exceptional people in healthcare. And they prove it every day,” Marios Themistocleous emphasized.

The family decided to settle permanently in Greece

According to Giorgos Kalavrouziotis, director of the cardiac surgery department at the hospital, the operation took place on August 14 and the girl came to the hospital on Friday to have her stitches removed.

In his post, Mr. Kalavrouziotis explains: "Today (Friday) Maria, 12 years old, a Greek-American girl who lives in New York, came to our Hospital for suture removal. This summer, Maria came with her family for a vacation in Kefalonia, her father's place of origin. She had a low-grade fever that persists for 20 days.

On 11/8 she goes to the island's Hospital. She had a chest X-ray and a CT scan, which showed that almost the entire left hemithorax was occupied by a "mass". She was transferred in the early hours of 12/8 to the Children's Hospital "Agia Sophia".

An MRI was performed and a surgical procedure was decided: biopsy and, depending on the result, removal of the tumor. The parents were puzzled and wonder how it was not diagnosed for so many years in the US, since the child had pediatric follow-up and hospitalization in a hospital due to asthma, where he had a chest X-ray.

The parents send the test results to their doctor in New York. He agrees to the operation, and tells the parents that they are in the best hospital in Greece!

On 8/14, the surgery was performed. The tumor turned out to be a teratoma, a benign tumor, which is present in humans from birth and grows with them!!! Due to the size, location and close connection of the tumor with sensitive organs and structures of the chest, the radical excision proved to be extremely difficult and was achieved after 6.5 hours of surgery.

If the diagnosis had been made at a younger age, things would have been much simpler. Maria is the oldest patient we have operated on with such a diagnosis (in fact, in 1 case the diagnosis had been made prenatally). Maria spent 2 days in the ICU and 8 in the ward.

Comment: Despite the major problems of the National Health System, mainly in terms of staffing and especially nursing staff, it remains a reliable system of providing health services, superior even to systems in more advanced countries. PS. I don’t know if little Maria’s adventure played a role, but her parents decided to settle permanently in Greece.”