Complex pain relief surgery performed at private hospital

-

Source: The Hindu, Chennai edition, June 2022

The patient was suffering from a brachial plexus injury

Doctors at Kauvery Hospital here have performed a complex spinal surgery to relive the excruciating pain in the limbs of a 24-year-old man suffering from brachial plexus injury.

A release from the hospital said the youngster met with a road accident three years ago, which resulted in an injury to the brachial plexus, a network of nerves responsible for carrying signals from the spinal cord to the shoulders and arms.

G. Balamurali, consultant spine and neurosurgeon at the hospital, said when a person suffered damages to the brachial plexus, it would cause extreme pain and weakness of the limbs. “The pain experienced is so severe that some patients want their limbs removed,” he said. Surgical procedures such as nerve transfer, muscle transfer or tendon transfer and management of pain with medications were often not very effective, he said.

The doctors at Kauvery Hospital, therefore, performed a complex surgery on the spinal cord called Dorsal Root Entry Zone (DREZ)lesioning, which takes eight to 10 hours to complete.

“The spinal cord is lesioned at multiple levels where sensory components of the nerves enter it,” Dr. Balamurali said. He added that the surgery, when performed right, can relive 90% of the pain. He said the patient, in this case, experienced complete pain relief.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IIT-Madras launches country’s first standing wheelchair

-
Union Minister Gehlot lauded IIT-Madras for its initiative, and also recalled the Narendra Modi government's various welfare measures for the 'divyang' Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Madras) has launched the country’s first indigenously designed standing wheelchair . The project, in collaboration with Phoenix Medical Systems, enables a differently-abled person requiring a wheelchair to shift from sitting to standing position, and vice versa, independently and in a controlled manner. The wheelchair ‘Arise’ was launched in the presence of Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Thawarchand Gehlot at the institute. Union Minister Gehlot lauded IIT-Madras for its initiative, and also recalled the Narendra Modi government’s various welfare measures for the ‘divyang’, including setting up five national-level sophisticated sports centres for differently-abled sportspersons in different parts of the country. According to Sashi Kumar, Managing Direct...
Read more

55-year-old man undergoes aortic valve replacement

-
Source: The Hindu , Chennai edition,  FRIDAY JULY 22, 2022   A 55-year-old man, who had underdeveloped limbs and was born with a single kidney, underwent an aortic valve replacement surgery at MadrasMedical Mission (MMM) . Doctors decided against Transcatheter Aortic ValveImplantation (TAVI) considering the risks involved due to his multiple co-morbidities and opted for surgical replacement with a tissue valve. The patient has deformities in his left upper and lower limbs due to a condition called phocomelia , where the limbs are underdeveloped. This deformity was the side effect of the drug Thalidomide given for morning sickness during pregnancy in the 1950s and 1960s. He was born with a single kidney and has had episodes of pancreatitis for which stents were placed, a press release said. He was diagnosed with a shriveled aortic valve and was having breathlessness. “We saw him in April this year. He had severe aortic stenosis. Traditionally, an aortic valve replacement s...
Read more