New Delhi, Jul 20 (PTI) A 12-year-old girl from Kyrgyzstan with an extremely deformed spine underwent surgery at a private hospital here that reduced her spine curvature from 130 degrees to 30 degrees, according to a statement.
The girl suffers from Progressive Dorsolumbar Scoliosis, a rare condition that affects about three children out of every one lakh.
According to doctors at Aakash Healthcare Hospital in Dwarka, where the girl underwent surgery, the disease is mostly related to genetic defects. It can, however, be caused by a variety of reasons such as muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, infection, tumour, or injuries.
The statement said the hospital used 3D printing technology to treat the girl who had an extremely deformed spine. She was also suffering from pelvic obliqueness, which is the misalignment of the pelvis. Often in this condition, one hip is higher than the other.
Due to the congenital disease, she was not able to lead a normal life as her spine had a curvature of 130 degrees. Her condition was deteriorating day by day. She experienced persistent pain in her pelvic region due to which she could no longer walk properly since her body had begun to slant to one side, it added.
As the girl’s condition worsened, her parents brought her to India. A 16-hour spine correction surgery was done in two stages by the ortho-spine division, the hospital said.
In the first stage of surgery, which lasted six hours, soft tissue adhesions were removed and multiple osteotomies (bone cuts) were used to increase the spine’s flexibility while correcting the alignment in the coronal plane, it said.
The second phase of the surgery involved the insertion of several titanium screws with help of 3D-printed jigs. These custom-made 3D printed jigs played an important role in pre-operative planning and also gave the surgeons an opportunity to practice the complicated screw insertion procedure on a 3D printed model which was a traced copy of the deformed spine, it said.
“Due to the spine’s severe deformity and the difficulty in inserting screws, 3D printing served as a crucial component to execute the surgery safely and without complications. The 3D imprint aided in surgical planning by calculating the size of the bone pedicles through which screws were put,” said Dr Nagesh Chandra, senior consultant, Spine Surgery.
“At every stage, 3D printing helped to plan the screw’s size, length, and direction. The most important feature is that it considerably lowered the risk of neurological complications and the associated problems. We could achieve almost 70 per cent to 80 per cent correction after surgery. Now her spine curvature has been reduced to just 30 degrees,” he said.
The girl is receiving physical therapy sessions to help her recuperate. She will be able to live a normal life without any problems, the hospital said. PTI SLB SLB DIV DIV
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Source: The Print
