Coming to the rescue of an 18-year-old patient who came in with a severely disabling injury on her left knee, doctors at JPN Hospital here have successfully performed the first ‘third generation autologous chondrocyte implantation'. Under this procedure, the stem cell of the patient is obtained, cultured and used to repair the cartilage deficit .
“This advanced surgery is being probably done for the first time in any government set up in the Capital and we are proud to announce that the patient is recovering well,'' said Professor in-charge of the sport injury and arthroscopy unit, Department of Orthopaedic, Vinod Kumar.
Giving details of this procedure he said: “The patient injured her knee while participating in a dance programme in August 2011 at her home town in Uttar Pradesh. Her knee developed swelling and she had constant pain. Though her parents took her to various local doctors there was no much change in her condition. Later they brought her to this hospital in Delhi and after investigations we found that the patient had damaged her cartilage of the knee joint which doesn't repair by itself.''
“Since the patient was very young we decided that she is suitable to undergo this latest procedure where healthy cartilage cells are taken, grown and reintroduced into the injured area to repair it. In this case we performed an arthroscopy procedure where natural cells from the cartilage was taken and these were transported by a private company to Korea where these cells from the patients knee were cultured, processed and grown and then delivered back to our hospital. We got four vials of the cultured cells with each vial containing 12 million cells which when introduced would repair the damaged cartilage of the knee. This procedure was performed on the patient on February 11 and the patient has been kept under observation at the Hospital,'' said Dr. Kumar.
The patient, who is still admitted to the hospital, is recovering well and “after the operation we are sure that the girl will be able to go back to her normal life. This latest use of technology to help poor patient in the government set up is a boon and we have also trained a group of doctors to conduct the procedure,'' said Dr. Kumar.
