Walking with both his hips fused at 90 degrees for nearly 15 years, Bharat Sen (28) is now walking with a straight spine again after undergoing a miraculous surgery at a private hospital in the Capital. Sen, who was suffering from Ankylosing Spondylitis, is standing and walking straight.
“This was the rarest deformity I have ever seen. Ankylosing Spondylitis is not an uncommon disease but the impact of it on this patient was shocking. It usually affects the spine but in this case, it severely affected the hips,” said Dr Yash Gulati, Director of the Department of Orthopaedics, Joint Replacement and Ortho-Spine at the BlK Super Speciality Hospital in the Capital.
Sen’s surgery was done in two stages and it took the doctors through a tough time. “In such cases, normally the spine gets fused and the other parts of the body get fused in later part of the life. However, in this case the spine is spared and his hips are completely fused. In an X-ray, one cannot even see if he has hips at all. He has not stood straight for 15 years and now, after his surgery he is standing straight,” informed Gulati, a Padmashree awardee who treated Sen.
Sen hails from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh and could not stand or walk without bending 90 degrees after being hit by the disease in his early teens. His surgery was successfully executed in two stages and new hip joints were created after which both hip replacements were done.