The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Resorbable screws used to correct congenital spine problem in six-year-old child from Tanzania

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Thursday, Nov 12, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Resorbable screws used to correct congenital spine problem in six-year-old child from Tanzania

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: Six-year-old Maureen Richard Shirima will now be able to run and jump, like other students in her class in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Clutching a yellow teddy bear, she recalled “Sometimes when I came back to class [after playing] I would be sick.” It would hurt “when I jump, when I run.”

Until a month ago the child suffered excruciating back pain, caused by a congenital anomaly of the lower spine and the spinal cord. Maureen’s problem was that she had a low-lying spinal cord which was tethered to a benign tumour.

A lower vertebra had broken causing back ache. Apollo Hospital senior consultant and spine surgeon Sajan K. Hegde said here on Tuesday that a bone graft was taken from the child and used to set the fractured bone and resorbable screws helped to keep the bones in place. He said resorbable screws were in use for sometime now across the world but this was the first time it was being used in India .

Normally, metal implants and screws are used to set bones and another surgery is required to remove them once the bones set.

Dr. Hegde said resorbable screws, now widely used for setting bones in other parts of the body, was chosen considering the patient’s age. T

he child was a beneficiary of collaboration between the Tanzanian Health Ministry and hospitals in India. The cost of her surgery was borne by the Tanzanian government, said a representative of the Tanzanian High Commission.

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