New Delhi: In 2021, a 16-year-old girl’s thigh bone, ravaged by a chronic infection, was reconstructed by Delhi doctors using a piece of bone taken from her mother’s lower leg. Five years later, the rebuilt bone continues to grow.The surgery also offered the doctors a new approach which they have used for curing other children who were advised amputation.Doctors said the challenge in these cases was the size of the defect. According to the surgeon treating the girl, the six children who underwent the procedure had bone gaps measuring around 12-13 cm. Three had bone cancer, two had chronic infections and one had a fracture that had failed to heal.When such a large section of a bone is lost, reconstruction becomes difficult. The child’s own bone may not be available in sufficient quantity, while conventional replacement options may not be suitable for every case. So, the team used the mother’s fibula — the smaller of the two bones in the lower leg — to bridge the gap and help rebuild the affected bone in the child.The first operation was performed in 2021. The surgeon said the team’s literature search at the time found only one reported case of maternal bone grafting in a child. It was for the forearm.The surgical team at Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital, Delhi, subsequently treated five more children using the approach.“When the first mother offered her bone, we had very little to guide us…. We asked ourselves whether it could work in the leg and decided the child deserved the chance,” said Dr Aashish Chaudhry, director and head of orthopaedics and robotic joint replacement., Aakash Healthcare.The later cases included children with bone cancers, some of whom had reportedly been advised to undergo amputation in their home countries. The second patient, a 14-year-old girl, underwent the procedure in 2022 after a chronic bone infection and a fracture in weakened bone left her thigh bone poorly healed.Four more children from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have since undergone similar reconstructive surgery. Two boys — aged five and 11 – both advised above-knee amputation in their home country — travelled from Uzbekistan after reportedly being advised to undergo above-knee amputation in their home country.Their treatment involved removing the diseased bone and reconstructing the defect with a segment of the mother’s fibula, secured with plates where required.
