AHMEDABAD: In an unusual surgery, the experts at Gujarat Cancer Research Institute (GCRI) saved the leg of a nine-year-old boy from Madhya Pradesh by removing his knee joint which was infected with cancer and converted the ankle into a knee!
Dr Abhijeet Salunke, orthopaedic oncosurgeon at GCRI, said that it was the second such operation in the recent past after the leg of a 12-year-old girl from Rajasthan was saved in a similar fashion.
“The surgery is identified as ‘rotationplasty’ where the ankle joint substitutes as knee joint after 180 degree turn. It’s a middle path between saving the limbs and amputation,” Dr Salunke explained.
GCRI director Dr Shashank Pandya said that the surgical procedure involved wide resection of bone tumour and separating the major neurovascular bundle and coiling of these structures. “The surgical procedure takes about five hours,” said Dr Pandya.