Rajkot: Every day for the past two years has been mentally painful for four-year-old Jenab Khan’s parents.
The little girl was diagnosed with jaw cancer, a very rare medical condition in children.
He could not chew and live mostly on the liquid.
But the marathon operation, mentioned as the first of its kind among children, has ensured that Jenab eats like other normal children.
Reconstructive or microvascular surgery was carried out at the Gujarat Gujarat (GCRI) Research Institute based in Ahmedabad last week and it was well recovered.
“Such operations are carried out in adults.
But our research and data show that this is the first time in India that reconstructive operations use a healthy tissue of legs done in young people like that,” Dr.
Hemant Saraiya, a plastic surgeon in the GCRI that carried out complex operations , tell Toi.
The cancer tumor in the jaw is the size of the lemon and operation lasts for almost nine hours.
“He will be able to eat normally now and must be repatriated in a few days,” he added.
GCRI officials said Jenab’s parents took him to several doctors and the majority of them suggested the deletion of the jaw as the only choice.
Medical experts say that microvascular operations are carried out to rejoin the body parts that are cut off such as fingers, hands, arms and other parts of amputation.
The surgeon does it by reconnecting the minute blood vessels which effectively restore circulation before the injured network starts to die.
The doctor transplants healthy bones from his legs in the jaw after releasing the cancer part to prevent spreading it in the body.
Khan lives in the Bhavnath Taleti Junagadh area and is included in the economically poor families.
“If the jaw of the child is not deleted, the opportunity to spread cancer can increase.
It is needed to be removed to save his life and release him from the pain,” said Plastic Surgeon Dr.
Hemant Saiya.
The doctor uses titanium plates and screws in this reconstruction operation.
Now, he will undergo physiotherapy training in the coming days and teeth will be implanted.