Teenage Girl Has Giant Tumour Removed From Her Cheek After 14 Years. Graphic Pics

An Indian teenager can smile for the first time in 14 years after doctors removed a 2.8kg tumour from her face. The lump had been growing on 16-year-old Pinki Kumari's cheek since she was two-and-a-half, rendering her a social outcast and forcing her to drop out of school.

After two surgeries failed, her impoverished family took her to experts who discovered the tumour was growing on her jaw and removed the bone entirely, replacing it with an artificial one.

'The doctors have just not given me a new face, they have given me a new life,' said Pinki, who can now pursue her dream of becoming a beautician.

Pinki, from the Dhanbad district of Jharkhand, first went under the knife when she was six, then again aged 12, but the tumour grew back both times. It became difficult for her father Sunil Kumar, who earns 400 rupees (£4.60) a day as a tailor, to provide for his family of six while continuing to pay for his daughter's treatment.

In a last ditch effort they made the gruelling 1,100 mile journey from eastern India to the Christian Medical College in Vellore in the south of the country, where doctors assured them Pinki's tumour was treatable.

For two years they did everything they could to raise 350,000 rupees (£4,000) for the operation until, two months ago, they were gifted the money by the Jharkhand government.

Doctors replaced Pinki's lower jaw with an artificial version while the joint that connects it to the skull was reconstructed using titanium. A second surgery replaced the eight teeth that were also removed.

Pinki was discharged from hospital yesterday - three weeks after her operation on November 9 - and allowed to go home with her new face.

Pinki, who once struggled to open her mouth to eat or speak, now cannot stop talking to her friends on the phone