Eight-kilo tumour removed from Austrian woman

Austrian surgeons removed a tumour weighing some eight kilos (18 pounds), as heavy as a seven-month-old baby, from the stomach of a 75-year-old woman, doctors said Thursday.

"We have never seen such a large and heavy tumour," doctor Gerhard Wolf from the University Hospital Graz (LKH) in southern Austria told a news conference.

The growth, thought to be benign, developed without the woman's knowledge over many years, until she went to the doctor last month complaining of digestion problems and severe pain.

The two-hour operation took place on Friday and the patient is recovering well and will be discharged soon, doctors said. Her enormous tumour is being kept for tests, however.