The minimally invasive procedure direct anterior approach has been used first time in India by doctors in Hyderabad. A team of surgeons worked on a 53-year-old Somali patient, Mukhtar Hilowli, and performed a double hip replacement using the latest minimally invasive procedure the direct hip anterior for the first time in India.
Minimally invasive surgery encompasses surgical techniques that limit the size of incisions needed and hence lessen wound healing time, associated pain, and risk of infection. Both the hips of Mukhtar got fused following a severe bout of infection way back in 1986. In his case due to the infection and both right and left hip joints normal cartilage on femoral head and acetabulum was destroyed and caused fusion of femoral head and acetabulum.
Dr P. Sharath Kumar, orthopedic surgeon speaking with ANI said, “Basically both the hips became stiff; it’s just like one bone. So you can imaging somebody walking when both the hips are fused, which is extremely difficult. It is disabling. When we did an X-ray his both bones were completely fused, so the only way out was to do both sides. We call it as double hip replacement or bilateral hip replacement”.
Speaking more on the procedure, Dr Sharath said, “After the procedure, he is undergoing physiotherapy and is quite happy and overjoyed. He is living the dream because he can sit, move his hips and walk. Overall, it was a complex case. We don’t cut the muscle, we just separate them, reaching the joint. So your muscle strength is maintained to some extent”.
“The other issue is normally we all have a joint to go and put the implant, but in his case it was one bone, so we had to cut above and below to create some space and make room for the implant. That takes a lot of time and we have to be accurate in that otherwise it can leads to dislocations,” Dr Sharath continued. He revealed that a normal surgery in such cases takes one to one and a half hour but due to complexities in Mukhtar’s case, it took them two and a half hours.
Dr Hari Prasad, President, hospital division of Apollo speaking with ANI said, “We just saw an international patient coming from Somalia getting a very complex surgery done in India. It proves that India has the capability, the expertise, and the technology to treat most complex cases and provide most advanced health care, and a large part of the world doesn’t have access to this type of care.”
Further, Dr Prasad said, “India has an opportunity to bring in a lot more international patients and offer care here. In India, we cannot treat a patient who comes in on tourist visa. They need to take medical visa, which takes a longer time to be issued compared to regular visas, and is also more expensive than a tourist visa.”
Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/health/minimally-invasive-procedure-used-to-perform-double-hip-replacement-for-first-time-in-india/story-IYTt7ZITxBlVUxgcPFNE8J.html
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