BENGALURU: A rare procedure involving two surgeries by Bengaluru doctors has helped save the spine of a 36-year-old tuberculosis patient, which was on the verge of collapsing.
Pushpa (name changed), a tuberculosis patient began experiencing severe back pain a year ago and was bedridden. She suffered weakness in lower limbs for the past few months despite being on anti-tubercular therapy and pain killers.
Pushpa was suffering from a condition called Pott’s spine or Tuberculosis Spine where the doctors noticed vertebral (spine) body destruction in the mid spine area, marginal sclerosis and significant discitis (inflammation between intervertebral discs of the spine). There was also pus around the spine.
Two expert surgeons, Dr Shashikiran (minimal access thoracic, gastrointestinal and general surgeon) and Dr Sanjeev MN, (orthopaedic surgeon), with help from consultant neurosurgeon from Ace Suhas Multispecialty Hospital, Jigani, Bengaluru, performed two surgeries — spine stabilisation and video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) —on Pushpa.
Dr Jagadish Hiremath, medical director of Ace Suhas Multispecialty Hospital and chairman at Aasra, said it is rare that both spine stabilisation and VATS are done on a single sitting as a therapeutic surgery. “Both are done independently but in this case, we needed both on a single sitting without which the condition would have aggravated, leading to spine collapse,” he said.
Dr Hiremath said Pushpa’s condition was one of the oldest diseases known to mankind and has been found in Egyptian mummies dating back to 3400 BC. In cases where the patient suffers from Pott’s spine, the tuberculosis virus eats the bone in the spine which makes the spine weak and eventually collapse. The patient then develops Paraplegia, a condition where he/she loses sensation in the areas below the point at which the spine collapses, he said.
After the surgeries that lasted for 11 hours, Pushpa will now be able to live a normal life. “It was a challenge for me to take care of my personal hygiene earlier. Now I can sit, stand and walk,” she said.
