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Brave Saif Basim is smiling again after British surgeons performed life-saving surgery to remove a tumour the size of a melon.

Now the charity which took out a £35,000 loan for the three-year-old Iraqi boy's operation is desperately trying to raise funds to pay the money back.

Saif was given just months to live because the benign growth was crushing his windpipe and would eventually choke him to death.

It weighed 600g (1lb 10oz) and measured more than 24cm (8in) long.

Surgery to remove the growth is unavailable in Iraq so British surgical charity the Norman Rowe International Educational Foundation stepped in to help.

And 12 British surgeons and doctors gave up their time for free to carry out the ten-hour operation at St George's Hospital in Tooting, south London.
After a month of recovering in hospital, Saif is able to eat properly again and is ready to go home. Lead surgeon Graham Smith, a head and neck specialist at St George's, said: 'Saif is coming along really well and it is great to see him smiling again.

'We didn't have to money to fund this operation but we had to act quickly and had no choice but to take out a loan.

'If we'd have waited Saif would have died. As it is, we have given him a chance of leading a normal life.'

Saif, who started to develop the growth when he was six months old, met Mr Smith on the surgeon's mission to Iraq in April. The 40-year-old diagnosed the growth as Aggressive Infantile Fibromatosis.

The charity was founded in 1993 to carry out humanitarian, educational and surgical work in deprived countries. Anyone wishing to donate to Saif's cause can e-mail office@baoms.org.uk

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Op donderdag 6 augustus 2009 00:51 schreef Cahir het volgende:
before after pics?

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Op donderdag 6 augustus 2009 01:30 schreef Cahir het volgende:
Niet erg geslaagd.