Lucknow: For over six agonising years, a 20-year-old girl was almost confined within the four walls of her home. Plagued by continuous, uncontrollable urinary leakage, the young girl withdrew completely from public life, dropping out of school to escape the stigma and humiliation that followed her at every step.Her parents took her to many doctors, including those at AIIMS Patna and New Delhi besides Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, but none could help her.Finally, in Dec 2024, she reached SGPGI’s urology department where Prof Sanjay Surekha and his colleague Dr Apran Yadav found that the girl’s ordeal was the result of an extremely rare, devastating complication of genital tuberculosis, known as tubercular vesicovaginal fistula (TVF).“The chronic infection had breached the biological divide, forming an abnormal passage between her urinary bladder and vagina, while shrinking it and making it dysfunctional,” said Prof Surekha.“I have undertaken some 300 TVF procedures in the past 15 years, but this was a first of its kind,” he said, adding that a multi-layer line of treatment was planned.“We began by starting the six-month long TB medication in Sept 2025 which ended in Feb 2026. After a three-month mandatory break, the surgery was planned in May 2026,” he said.“Operating inside a pelvic cavity ravaged and scarred by long-standing infection was like making sense of a blurred image. We beat that with the unmatched 3D visualisation and extreme dexterity of medical robot,” he said.“We dissected dense scar tissue, closed the fistula tract and rebuilt the bladder reservoir while preserving delicate surrounding tissue and drastically cutting down blood loss. The patient benefited with fewer postoperative complications, negligible scarring, and quick recovery,” he said.Last week, the patient reported for her post-op follow-up and surprised the doctors with her recovery. “She was pain-free, confident and chirping like any young girl in the late teens. She had put on weight and looked free of disease. But the real triumph lies in the fact that she is set to resume studies,” he said, thanking the head of the department, Prof MS Ansari, anaesthetist Dr Tapas Singh and resident doctors.
