A 24-year-old man in the city, born with a congenital deformity in his hip bones , recently underwent a procedure to enable him to sit normally.
The ball of his hip bone was too large and would not fit into the socket to enable him to sit cross-legged or kneel. He approached G. Leonard Ponraj, head of the arthroscopy and sports injury department at the Tamil Nadu Government Multi Super Speciality Hospital in Omandurar Estate.
Dr. Leonard said a thorough examination found that his ball and socket joint were malformed.
He was suffering from a congenital anomaly, in which the ball in the hip bone did not fit into the socket. “He was not able to sit cross-legged for over two years. He was not able to do namaz. We have the facilities in the hospital and were able to help him,” he said.
According to Dr. Leonard, only four orthopaedists in the country have specialised in minimally invasive surgery to correct the malformation of hip bone-and-socket joints.
Three of them are in the private sector.
From being a blob of bone, the hip joint differentiates into a head, neck and shaft. In the patient, the bone stopped remodelling, making it a birth anomaly.
“In his case, the ball did not narrow and remained a bony bump. We call this a ‘cam lesion’. This does not allow the ball to enter the socket. Through a 5mm keyhole, we skimmed the excess bone, just like a carpenter would scrape the excess wood with sandpaper,” Dr. Leonard said.
The excess bone was burred to enable the ball to glide into the socket smoothly.
Two days later, the man was able to sit cross-legged. When he came for suture removal, as a token of appreciation, he donated a ₹3 lakh drill to the department.
“It would have cost him at least ₹2.5 lakh in a private hospital,” Dr. Leonard said.
The man would have to undergo a similar surgery on his right hip as well.
