MANGALURU: A 1-year-old girl from Dakshina Kannada, who is suffering from bone cancer, has taken her first steps on an artificial hip joint shipped from Italy.
Her parents, farmers from a village near Mangaluru, said thanks to doctors and fundraisers who put up the money, their daughter can stand on her own feet now.
The bad news hit the couple in November last year, a day before her first birthday.
“The baby had terrible pain in her left hip and it disrupted her sleep.
An evaluation revealed that it was a high-grade cancer of the thigh bone.
The only options left were chemotherapy and amputation of the leg, or shortening of the leg.
Amputating her leg was disheartening for the parents, who were waiting to see the baby walk,” said Dr Pramod S Chinder, director and head of the department of orthopaedic oncology at HCG Cancer Hospital in Bengaluru.
The doctors looped in pediatric oncologist Dr Harsha Prasad and the baby underwent chemotherapy.
When the size of the tumour began decreasing, doctors decided to perform the leg-saving surgery in April, with the help of Dr Marco Manfrini of Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli hospital in Bologna, Italy.
“For surgery, we required fresh frozen allograft from the Rizzoli bone bank as it is not available in India.
The baby was lucky because we received a similar case of an Omani child, and the Oman government was overseeing the case which helped speed up the process.
With the help of administrative and international workup and nod from ICMR, and customs, the bone (femur) was shipped from Italy to Bengaluru,” Chinder said.
Limb-sparing surgery is mainly done to treat cancer of bones and soft tissues.
While doctors moved ahead on the treatment front, one of Chinder’s patients, Preema, and her friend Nolveera raised funds for the surgery.
Preema passed away recently.
Nearly Rs 30 lakh was raised by Milaap, Aaro Care and HCG.
The surgery went on for about eight hours.
“The child has recovered well,” Chinder said.
“We were shattered when our daughter was diagnosed with cancer,” said the girl’s father Dinesh.
“We are grateful to the doctors and others who helped us financially.”
Mangaluru: Cancer-hit baby walks with bone graft
