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ITV News Reporter Ellie Pitt was given exclusive access to film an unprecedented and extraordinary life-saving operation involving teams of top surgeons from four leading hospitals
Warning: This report contains details and images of surgery
Brandon Lee has been living with a cancerous tumour in his neck for over a year.
The 26-year-old, from London, has a hereditary condition called multiple exostoses syndrome (HME), which causes usually benign lumps near his joints.
When he felt a small bump on his shoulder two years ago, he thought it was another caused by HME, but it continued to grow in size.
Soon it had grown from his shoulder blade, over his shoulder, around his collar bone and into the root of his neck. It was steadily getting closer to his windpipe, threatening to restrict his breathing.
After a series of tests, his doctor diagnosed him with cancer.
Brandon Lee, 26, has been living with a cancerous tumour in his neck for over a year. Credit: ITV News
Professor Vin Paleri, a consultant head and neck surgeon at The Royal Marsden Hospital in London, told ITV News: “This particular tumour does not respond to chemotherapy or radiation therapy. It needs radical surgery.”
The surgery required four teams from three hospitals across the country to come together, for what they say was a once-in-a-decade operation.
Removing the tumour required experts specialising in bone, head and neck, vascular, and plastic reconstructive surgery.
ITV News has been given, with Mr Lee’s consent, exclusive access to the surgery and recovery.
A standard operation will usually need seven to eight members of staff to be in theatre, but there were more than 20 in the room during Mr Lee’s procedure.
The surgery required four teams from three hospitals across the country to come together. Credit: ITV News
The stakes were high, and the implications for Mr Lee were life-changing.
If, while trying to extract the tumour, a surgeon accidentally damaged his windpipe, his breathing, swallowing and vocal cords could have all been affected.
If a blood vessel had been cut he could have lost litres of blood. If the artery to the brain had been struck he could have had a stroke.
“It’s one of the riskiest operations we will do because…things can go wrong quite drastically, quite rapidly…we have to be alert,” Prof Paleri said.
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Craig Gerrand, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore, said: “These operations tend to have multiple stages. We’ll have a stage where we remove the tumour and that’s often what takes a long time and that’s the priority and then we’re going to give him the best possible reconstruction we can, to give him the best function.”
Mr Lee had his operation on Thursday, August 13. It lasted nearly 11 hours.
Professor Vin Paleri, a consultant head and neck surgeon at The Royal Marsden Hospital in London. Credit: ITV News
Surgeons had to remove his shoulder blade and cut his collar bone to extract the tumour. But the growth, which weighed nearly 7kg, was taken out as a single mass, which was crucial to prevent cancerous cells from remaining in Mr Lee’s body.
His arm mobility will be limited because of the bones he has lost, but he still has the full function of his hand and is positive about his recovery.
“I already feel more confident now that it’s gone,” Brandon told ITV News two days after the surgery.
“I’m more comfortable now to do things and socialise a bit more with everyone else, because it was a big, massive tumour in the shoulder where I couldn’t really rotate my head too much. I couldn’t really do a lot of things.”
It was one of the most complex surgeries the hospital had ever seen. A once-in-a-lifetime surgery for the team involved, and a life-changing one for Brandon.
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