Back on his feet

Rare surgery called Bone Transport enables 41-year-old to re-grow his leg bones naturally, reports Naziya Alvi.

Chandrakant Kothere (41) laughed with a childlike glee on Wednesday as he relived the joy of standing on his feet.

HT Image

Having suffered multiple compound fractures on his right leg in a road accident three years ago, the Hindustan Petroleum employee, was advised amputation, as repeated surgeries couldn’t correct the deformity.

His right leg had become three inches shorter than the other leg.

Kothere, however, decided to fight the odds.

“My faith in god did not let me give up and has finally paid off,” said Kothere, after he walked into a press conference on Wednesday morning at Wockhardt Hospital.

A rare surgery called Bone Transport has enabled Kothere’s body to re-grow his leg bones naturally.

Explaining the complicated procedure that put Kothere back on his feet, Dr Sachin Bhonsle, an orthopedic surgeon said, the surgery was performed in two stages.

In January, all the infected and un-united bones at the fracture site were cleared out.

Next, the leg was aligned and bone fragments were fixed using a ring shaped stainless steel frame called, Ilizarov External Fixator.

The screws attached to the Fixator were tightened at regular intervals to enable the leg bones to re-grow naturally.

At this stage the second surgery was performed in May to slip a special titanium plate under the skin to fix all three bone fragments together to achieve a solid union.

After the bone grafting it took further two months for these bones to heal fully and the patient finally got a straight leg of normal length.