Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: A six-month-old boy has undergone a successful metal-free spine fixation surgery using a bone graft from his mother at the AIIMS here, making him the youngest in Asia to undergo such a procedure, doctors at the hospital said.
The infant was kept on a ventilator for 11 months after undergoing the 15-hour surgery on June 10 last year and was discharged on May 10, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) said in a statement.
The child had sustained spinal cord and brachial plexus injury during normal vaginal delivery at another hospital. He weighed 4.5 kg (macrosomia) at birth, said Dr Deepak Gupta, professor of neurosurgery at AIIMS.
“As per literature search, this happens to be the youngest infant in Asia and the second youngest in the world to undergo cervical spine fixation surgery at such a young age,” he said.
“Only one such case in a younger infant has been reported from the USA in 2016 of a similar injury fixed using autograft,” he added.