American plastic surgeon Dr. McKay McKinnon successfully removed an 82-kilogramme tumour on a Vietnamese man's leg in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday and then removed another large-sized tumour on a woman's face in a separate operation the following day.

McKinnon and his team of 60 medical support staff took 12 hours and seven litres of blood transfusion to remove the giant tumour on the right leg of Nguyen Duy Hai, 32, of Lam Dong province. The patient, who also was put into a medically-induced coma before the operation, was placed in an intensive-care unit after the delicate surgery conducted at the France-Vietnam (FV) Hospital.

McKinnon also removed a 1.5-kilogramme tumour on the face of Kieu Thi My Dung, 23, in an 8-hour operation at Cho Ray Hospital in the Vietnamese capital city. He and 20 other local doctors and nurses had to take a part of the patient's skull bone to recreate her right eye socket, which was seriously damaged by the tumour. The doctors also aligned Dung's cheekbone and recreated her right eye's ciliary muscle.

A third scheduled operation on another tumour patient, Thach Thi Sa Ly, was performed by McKinnon also at Cho Ray Hospital on Sunday. Ly, 35, of Soc Trang province, has thousands of tumors covering her entire body. The tumours are of different sizes with the large ones the size of oranges or lemons. Tumours cover her face deforming it and preventing her from seeing.

Meanwhile, Dr. Gerard Desvignes, medical director of FV Hospital, said it will take 15 days before the operation on Hai could be declared a success, according to Thanh Nien News. The operation carried the risk of complication because of the record size of the tumour.

The tumor started growing since Hai was born and his right leg became bigger than the left leg by the time he was four years old. His condition, like in the cases of Dung and Ly, is called Neurofibromatosis, a human genetic disorder.

Neurofibromatosis is caused by a mutation of the protein neurofibromin, a tumour suppressor. The mutation leads to erratic and uncontrolled cellular proliferation. Symptoms include bumps under the skin, freckling of the groin or armpit and iris, pigmented birthmarks, thinning of long bones in the body, tumours on the optic nerve, abnormally large head and epilepsy.

The condition has no cure, but management of the symptoms or complications can be done. For example, surgically removing tumours that compress organs or other structures. Families with neurofibromatosis also need genetic screening and counseling.

At age 17, Hai's leg from the knee was amputated, but the tumour kept growing. Because the tumour was so big, he had to sleep in sitting position and had to rely on his mother for all his needs because he could barely move. Has has been admitted to the Ho Chi Minh City Tumour Hospital since July last year.

The tumor on Dung's face started growing from her eyelid when she was three months old. Her parents brought her to different hospitals but doctors could not treat her disease.

Ly's tumours are painful and prevent her from walking, so she depends on her 60-year-old mother, Thach Sa Phai, in doing things.

Red tumours began to appear on Ly's body when she was 10 years old. When she reached puberty, the tumours spread to cover her entre body.

Her parents could not afford the medical cost of treating her.