Lucknow, March 10
The doctors of King George's Medical University (KGMU) here have successfully conducted revision knee replacement surgeries on two elderly women whose initial replacements had failed.
"One woman underwent her first knee replacement 12 years ago and the other woman had the surgery two years ago. Both patients developed infection leading to septic loosening of the implant," said Prof Narendra Singh Kushwaha, orthopaedic surgeon at KGMU. Explaining the complexity, he said, "We had to plan a two-stage surgery for these women, where first we removed infection and placed bone cement for the bone loss due to infection. Then we had to wait for two months. In the second stage, the new implant was placed." Doctors had to remove the old implant too. Both patients, a 63-year-old woman from Prayagraj and a 66-year-old woman from Unnao, have regained the ability to walk independently. "The case of 12-year-old revision was more complicated as the ligaments were also damaged due to infection," said Prof Kushwaha. A knee replacement surgery takes about 40 minutes and in this case of revision surgery, it took an hour and a half. Dr Ashish Kumar, HoD orthopaedic surgery, said, "We are conducting up to two revision knee replacement cases every month."