K & P

Doctors perform scoliosis surgery at Abbottabad's ATH

First ever successful operation of this type performed at a govt hospital in K-P

Our Correspondent December 28, 2018

X-ray images of a patient before and after fixing of screws and rods in her spine at ATH. PHOTOS EXPRESS

ABBOTTABAD: Neurosurgery Department of Ayub Teaching Hospital on Thursday announced the “first ever successful scoliosis surgery in any government based neurosurgery department of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa” that lasted for about eight hours.

A 17-year old girl from Afghanistan, was operated for scoliosis by Ayub Teaching Hospital neurosurgeons Dr Abdul Aziz Khan and Dr Ehtisham Afridi assisted by Dr Khalid Zadran, Dr Sajjad and other team members including Anaesthesia department and OT technicians. Thus, Neurosurgery Department of Ayub Teaching Hospital become the first ever Neurosurgical department in any government hospital of K-P to conduct such surgery, said Dr Abdul Aziz.

Living with her deformity, called scoliosis in medical terminology, for the past 17 years, she faced an acute backache.

Associate Professor of Neurosurgery Dr Abdul Aziz, said that scoliosis is a medical condition in which a person’s spine has a sideways curve. The curve is usually “S”- or “C”-shaped.

In some, the degree of curve is stable, while in others, it increases over time. This disease affects girls more severely than boys.

Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery Dr Ehtisham said that the patient came to Neurosurgery OPD with deformity of back and severe a backache. “We put 18 screws of titanium in the bone around her spine during the eight-hour long surgery to correct the curvature using two rods of one foot each,” he said. The patient is completely stable and will be able to walk in two weeks. This surgery is very expensive outside, but here in our hospital it’s free of cost, he added.

ATH Neurosurgery Department is considered as one of the best in K-P and the only one for the whole north Pakistan’s patients. Eight neurosurgeons and around 10 to 15 training medical officers are providing accident and emergency services, OPD, wards and surgery facilities, free of cost to the patients.

In the last 11 months of 2018, around 1,000 surgeries of brain and spine have been performed, and few very complicated surgeries as well. Besides this, 3,500 patients have been admitted to the department and thousands of patients have been provided with OPD services.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 28^th, 2018.