A 55-year-old Bangladeshi resident with ossified posterior longitudinal ligament approached us at KEM hospital after consulting several doctors in his country. This condition involves thickening of ligament between spinal cord and vertebral column which in his case caused acute limb weakness.
When he was brought to us, he could not walk without support, could not dress himself or function on his own. The ligament becomes ‘bone like’ and affects the nerves in the spine. He had developed weakness in all four limbs.
The conventional method of treating this disorder is anterior corpectomy fixation or posterior approach, in which a surgery to remove the affected ligament is done from the front or the back side. In both the methods, the spinal cord may get affected which can make the patient bed-ridden permanently or, worse, damage his nerves.
In this case, we adopted a different philosophy to treat him. We assumed that the disorder is caused by spinal cord’s instability (several in the medical world believe it is a genetic condition). So if we fix the spine, the ligament can also be fixed. We adopted transarticular posterior fixation procedure in which screws were put below the neck in the spine to make it stable.
Within three days, he recovered well as the ligament became stable. Now, he can move and function on his own. The limbs became much more active. The same philosophy has also been published by us in the US-based World Neurosurgery Journal. The procedure is less risky.
As told by Dr. Dr Atul Goel (Head, Neurosurgery department, Tertiary-care KEM Hospital, Mumbai) to Tabassum Barnagarwala
from The Indian Express » Section » Health http://bit.ly/1ggvk9x
via Food Channel Shows
from Tumblr http://bit.ly/1iDCTcm
No comments:
Post a Comment