AIIMS doctors perform critical 100 degrees of spine correction surgery

NEWDELHI: In a six-hour surgery, doctors at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi corrected a spinal deformity in a 20-year-old that had him almost double over from his waist.

Biresh Kumar had a condition called juvenile ankylosing spondylitis, a type of arthritis that affects the spine and large joints.

The disease may result in eroding of the joint between the spine and the hip bone.

“Kumar needed an almost 100 degrees of spinal correction to help him walk straight. There are three ways in which we cut the bones of the spinal cord to correct spinal curvatures and in this case, we had to perform all three,” said Dr Bhavuk Kumar, associate professor in the hospital’s orthopaedic department.

A review of the medical literature suggests that such a degree of spinal correction has never been attempted i n the world, according to the doctors.

“It was very painful for me to even get up and go to the bathroom. I used to take two or three painkillers every day,” Kumar said. He even had trouble eating and breathing because his organs had all been squeezed in a very small body cavity.

“His spinal bones had completely fused to form a pipe-like structure, which meant that we could not even see the nerves running inside the spinal column. One misstep could paralyse him for life,” said Rajesh Malhotra, head of the department of orthopaedics at the hospital.

“There is a 25-30% risk of paralysis for such surgeries according to global figures, and in those cases the deformities might not even be this bad. Plus, just getting the patient on an operating table is a challenge because of the curvature. Even giving anaesthesia was a problem,” said Dr Garg.

“The important thing to remember here is that most such spinal deformity are avoidable if the primary disease, in this case the arthritis, is treated on time,” said Dr Malhotra. AIIMS treats around 100 such cases of spine deformity every year and still they have a waiting list of two years.

“The burden of the disease is quite high, but there are maybe just a couple of centres in India — both public and private — that perform spine correction surgeries. There is also a delay in treatment because many people and even primary physicians do not know that such cases can be treated,” he said.