The doctors at a private hospital in Dehradun claimed to have gone for limb salvage surgery on a young patient afflicted with cancer. Speaking to The Pioneer, the bone soft tissue expert Dr Vivek Verma said, “It was a challenging case because there was a large tumour on the patient which had destroyed the upper two- third of the thigh bone and the problem was compounded due to contamination of the thigh by application of rods and fixators from the outside. His bone size was very small because of his young age and the regular tumour prosthesis available would have been too big for his bone size. Moreover, financial issues were also there as his parents were from an economically unprivileged section. We ordered special implants to match his bone size. The patient is now walking normally after remaining bedridden for nearly six months.”
The hospital sources further claimed that more such patients down with cancer were treated by the Oncologists who saved their limbs from being amputated by some implants and insertions, the process being called Curopsy
The Oncologists based in the hospital warned that if the patients feel pain in a part of the body and if it persists it does not necessarily mean that infection is behind it. “It might be a growing tumour. It is thus imperative to fix the nature and the origin of the pain. If detected early, things can be fixed sans removal of limbs,” says an expert.
“Ewing’s sarcoma is a rare type of bone cancer that destroys and spreads to the surrounding muscles and may involve nerve and vessels. It usually affects people in the age group of five to 20 years and the records say that most of such patients are cured if treated rightly,” the expert adds.
Another expert from the hospital Dr Mahesh Sultania claimed, “A patient underwent Curopsy under which a needle is inserted in the cavity of the walls of the ulna bone in the wrist. Special chemical is also injected in the cavity.
The patient is now doing well.” Identification of the symptoms of bone cancer at early stage is a must, he said, adding that if the pain persists it could be a sign of tumour growing inside.