Doctors at JIPMER have recently successfully performed a surgery to replace the humerus of a patient suffering from primary bone cancer. He was afflicted with Osteosarcoma on his humerus, the bone between shoulder and elbow.
The surgery was done by Prof D K Patro, Head of Orthopaedics Department, with support from Departments of Medical Oncology, Radiotherapy and Anaesthesia.
The humerus replacement was performed as a staged procedure for restoring the limb of the patient. The operation involved replacement of the entire bone with an artificial one along with replacing the shoulder and the elbow joints. The procedure uses a kind of bone cement to anchor the artificial bone.
The replacement surgery was done using the money sanctioned by the Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi (RAN) Fund. The treatment of the patient was completely free of charge. Last year, Dr Patro had performed two cases of total femur replacement in elderly patients who had malignancies in the bone.