BENGALURU:Doctors of Sakra World Hospital have conducted have successfully performed a ‘keyhole skull expansion surgery’ on a five-month-old infant suffering from craniosynostosis.
Craniosynostosis is a congenital deformity of the skull that results from the premature closure of the sutures between the cranial bones.
Dr Derick Mendonca and Dr Swaroop Gopal performed the surgery on August 21 using a new process, compared to how it has been done so far.
According to Gopal, the surgery was performed using indigenous technology. Another important aspect of the surgery was that it can be performed on babies less than six months old, compared to the earlier version, wherein the child has to be at least a year old.
“The important aspect of craniosynostosis is that it needs early intervention, or else, it will be too late. Normally when the surgery is done, there is a lot of blood loss, a longer stay at the hospital and a longer incision on the baby’s head.
“However, in the new surgery, all of these problems are reversed. It also needs extreme precision. The previous method of conducting the surgery takes around six hours and costs Rs 3.5 lakh. However, we did the surgery in two hours, and at a cost of Rs 1.5 lakh,” said Mendonca.