Doctors in Chennai use new method to treat giant cell tumour

CHENNAI: Doctors in the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital tried a new technique in treating giant cell tumour. The doctors used the method on 10 patients over one-and-a-half years and all patients are now doing well. The new method is almost a success, say the doctors at the Institute of Orthopaedic and Traumatology, RGGGH. 

“The giant cell tumours around the knee joint are more common in women than men. Conventionally we used to fill the cavity on the knee bone after removing the tumour using a bone graft or knee implant. But, now we just gave support to the bone using small extra bone in the leg and left the cavity unfilled and the patients are doing well”, explained Dr V Singaravadivelu, Professor of Orthopaedics. 

“Its an aggressive tumour, it erodes the bone and reduces the bone to a thin fragment. In 95 per cent of the cases the tumour recurs. Usually doctors fill the cavity in a fear that there would be no balance for leg. But we did this in 10 patients and it has been over a year and the patients are doing fine,” said Singaravadivelu.
These patients were also given Zoledromic acid injection before and after surgery to prevent recurrence. Even after a year now there was no recurrence in any patients. It’s non- cancerous. But, it shows characteristics of cancerous tumour. “We are planning to publish the method in a scientific journal soon,” said Singaravadivelu.