/ 19 March 2006

Spanish doctors perform 60kg ‘tummy tuck’

Spanish surgeons using cranes and ropes removed a 60kg mass of fat and liquid from the abdomen of a middle-aged woman in the procedure known as a tummy tuck.

Francisco Javier Gabilondo, chief of plastic surgery at Hospital Cruces near the Basque city of Bilbao, said on Friday the operation was ”more spectacular than it was difficult”.

The nine-hour procedure was performed last week, and the name of the patient was not released. She is in her 50s.

Gabilondo said she suffered from morbid obesity and until now had to sleep with the fatty mass — known as an abdominal apron — placed beside her on a table.

The medical team had to use cranes to lift the mass and give doctors access to the rest of her body so it could be cut away, Gabilondo told reporters.

The woman’s total body weight was not given. ‒ Sapa-AP