Eleven hour surgery performed on 13-year-old patient

Hyderabad: A 13-year-old patient was treated for his deformity in the back at KIMS Hospital, Kondapur and was brought to the normal life by the experts available with the hospital. The deformity in the child was by birth and was affecting the psychology of the boy negatively.

Senior Spine Surgeon Dr Krishna Chaitanya examined the deformity and diagnosed that it was actually a Congenital Kyphoscoliosis (forward bend of the spine). The Kyphosis was around 80 degrees and needed surgery. The patient belonged to Tadipatri and was studying in eighth standard. The deformity was a birth defect and was been increasing. As a result of this deformity he was depressed which started showing effect over his studies.

When he was referred to KIMS, doctors at KIMS decided to go for a surgery in order to avoid further damage or paraplegia. The child, Harshit was operated upon on February 21 this year. The eleven hours surgery was carried out under intraoperative neural monitoring with total intravenous anesthesia.

The abnormal vertebrae were removed, and deformity was corrected with pedicle screws and direct vertebral rotation. The deformity was corrected by 90 percent and the boy recovered well and walking comfortably after the surgery. Dr. K Krishna Chaitanya said that deformities were very common in our society and should be identified in school screening program to prevent progression to huge curves like the one in Harshit’s example.

Schools in developed countries have screening programs for various diseased, in which scoliosis is also included. Adams forward bending test is a simple test which is done to identify children with bent back. This test is done by asking the child to bend forward so the back is parallel to the ground and asymmetry in shoulders and loin is observed, he said. Ideally this child should have been operated at 5 years age , which would have been a much simpler surgery with less risk, he added.