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​Man's 'Beer Belly' Turns Out To Be 30lb Tumour

​Man's 'Beer Belly' Turns Out To Be 30lb Tumour

He underwent six hours of surgery to remove the tumour - when doctors realised it was actually triple the size of what they'd predicted

Jess Hardiman

Jess Hardiman

Most of us are guilty of harbouring a little bit of podge around our waist, thanks to one few too many beers or an extra slice of cake here and there. But what if your overhanging gut wasn't actually the result of excessive boozing or overindulging, and actually something a whole lot more sinister?

Kevin Daly, 63, was confused by the size of his stomach - even losing 34 pounds in a bid to shed what everyone else had assumed was a beer belly.

"But I never drank beer," Kevin told CBS. "Don't like it, always been athletic, never had a belly."

However, it turned out not to be fat, but actually a 30lb tumour.

Kevin, who is a financial planner from Hoboken in New Jersey, managed to originally lose a load of weight following an open heart surgery back in 2015. But, alarm bells rang when his stomach didn't slim down like the rest of his body.

NBC

It was then that Kevin and his wife Rachelle wondered if there could be another reason behind his strange problem.

"I thought they literally left stuffing and tools in me from surgery," Kevin told the New York Daily News.

Despite objections from the insurance provider, Kevin managed to get himself a CT scan - had he not done that, he may have never survived.

Kevin underwent six hours of surgery to remove the tumour, which was when doctors realised it was actually triple the size to what they'd originally predicted. It had also wrapped itself around one of Kevin's kidneys.

Doctors at the hospital said it was the largest they'd ever removed.

NBC

"It's one thing to see the picture. It's another thing to actually have it in your hands," Kevin's surgeon Dr Julio Teixeira told CBS.

Kevin's doctors reckon that the tumour must have taken between 10 and 15 years to grow to the immense size that it did, and that he was extremely lucky that it didn't cause anything in his body to fail.

"Although these tumors are large and malignant, they grow slowly and tend to not metastasize," Teixeira told CBS.

"Often there's a very good prognosis."

Now Kevin is feeling good and considers himself lucky to be alive, saying that he 'dodged a couple of bullets'.

He won't need any chemotherapy or radiation as it's a slow-growing tumour, and has little tendency to metastasise. He will, however be monitored with regular MRIs, just to be on the safe side.

Featured Image Credit: NBC

Topics: Science, Interesting, US News