Visakhapatnam: a 55-year-old man, who almost lost his left long bone in an accident that occurred in some remote area of Odisha gets new lease of life with a complex procedure done at KIMS ICON hospitals, Visakhapatnam. Doctors fixed an artificial bone and made him walk within a short span of life so that he can start earning his livelihood. Dr. Satishkumar P, chief joint replacement surgeon, and Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Siddhartha explained the details of the surgery to the media.

”55-year-old person met with an accident in a remote area of Odisha. He belongs to a very poor social status. They don’t have any proper medical facilities in their area. His left thigh bone was damaged badly in the accident. That was an open fracture of the thigh. Bone got exposed and the pieces also came out. The journey from the accident spot to Visakhapatnam takes almost two days. Heavy blood loss was there and as the injury got exposed, heavy infection due to contamination was also detected. We can salvage the bone by plating if they come within the golden hour, which is less than 20 hours of the accident. We have cleaned the injury, performed surgery with fixing the wires. But, we had to remove the damaged bone completely. Almost 8 centimeters of bone is damaged. Usually, we can salvage the bone if the loss is less than 6 cm. there were chances of infection as the injury was exposed. As there were blood loss and a lack of treatment in the journey, the patient was in shock. So, we have stabilized him first. A surgery was done the next day with a blood transfusion. But the bone couldn’t be fixed.

If we want the bone to regrow itself, it takes one or one and half years and he has to be bedridden all the time. But he has to walk early to meet his daily needs. So, we have decided to go for the custom made tkr. We have measured the knee joint, and the bone with CT Scan. We also measured the opposite limb and took exact values. The artificial bone is made at MIDHANI in Hyderabad with titanium metal. It takes 2-3 weeks to make it. Meanwhile, the infection also should come down. We have fixed the artificial bone after 6 weeks of the first surgery. The patient underwent plastic surgery for the fixation of muscles. Now he is walking on his own. The natural growth of the bone takes up to two years and we are not sure whether it’ll be a success or not. As we opted for an artificial custom made bone, he is standing on his legs and doing his regular works too.”