Thaindian News

New Delhi, Dec 28 (IANS) In a rare case of uncemented hip replacement surgery, a 57-year old man got both his hips replaced simultaneously at a hospital in Noida near the capital city.

Dev Singh of Dehradun was suffering from psoriatic arthritis, a condition which develops out of chronic skin disease, psoriasis. Dev Singh’s condition was so bad that the psoriasis affected his hip joints, locking them completely, according to a doctor.

The Dec 20 surgery involved replacing his hip joints with regular chrome bones and cups made of high molecular polyethylene, without using any cementing material, said Dr. Kaushal Mishra of Fortis Hospital Noida, where it was performed.

“The condition of psoriasis reaching bones occurs hardly in 10 percent cases, and 10 percent of them develop an infection in the hip. This is one of the rarest infections and the fact that the patient had diabetes made things more complicated,” Mishra explained Tuesday.

While the situation was complicated, a rare uncemented (without using any cementing material) double hip replacement surgery was performed on Dev Singh, the first of its kind in Delhi and the region, the doctor said.

“Replacing both hips at the same time is complicated because for the surgery a patient is placed laterally on his side; the risk is that after the first surgery, when the patient is made to lie on the other side for the second one the replaced joint may get dislocated,” said Dr. Brajesh Koushel, who was among the team of surgeons treating Dev Singh.

“However, if a doctor is technically confident, the risk can be taken and that’s what we did,” he said.

According to the doctors, the patient was able to move his legs right after the surgery and in 48 hours he was able to walk with support.

“We did not find any similar uncemented double hip replacement surgery documented in records all over India. In Delhi it’s definitely the first and one of rare successes,” Fortis Hospital director Dr. Ashok V. Chordiya claimed.

For the ailing Dev Singh, the surgery is his ticket to a new life.

“All I can say is that it is a new life for me because I can walk again,” he said, adding, “earlier I was not able to walk or even stand, now I will be able to live normally.”