22kg ovarian cyst removed from woman in Najaf

NAJAF / IraqiNews.com: An ovarian cyst weighing 22 kg has been removed from a woman during a successful operation at the al-Sadr Teaching Hospital, a surgeon said on Tuesday. “The 22kg cyst was attached to the left ovary,” Dr. Salman Jassem al-Thabhawi told IraqiNews.com. “The operation, performed four days ago, took half an hour and the patient left the hospital today…,” the surgeon added. The excised cyst was the second largest cyst ever detached from a human being all over the world, according to the surgeon. Najaf, about 160 km south of Baghdad, has an estimated population of 900,600 in 2008, though this has increased significantly since 2003 due to immigration from abroad. The city is one of the holiest cities of Shiite Islam and the center of Shiite political power in Iraq. Najaf is renowned as the site of the tomb of Ali ibn Abi Taleb (also known as “Imam Ali”), whom Shiites consider to be the righteous caliph and first imam. The city is now a great center of pilgrimage from throughout the Shiite Islamic world. It is estimated that only Mecca and Medina receive more Muslim pilgrims. The Imam Ali Mosque is housed in a grand structure with a gilded dome and many precious objects in its walls. SS (S) 1