The Shalby hospital in Ahmedabad successfully performed a rare hip replacement surgery on a patient from Ghana after six such surgeries failed to cure her problem. The operation was successfully performed by Dr Vikram Shah, world-renowned joint replacement surgeon, and his team which included Dr J A Pachore, Director, Hip Surgery, Dr Amish Kshatriya, Senior Joint Replacement Surgeon and Dr Pranay Gujjar, Joint Replacement Surgeon. Nansata Salifu, 65, a resident of Bolgatanga town in Ghana, went for hip replacement in 2017 after a fall in December 2016, but it failed to cure her. Then she sought treatment from another hospital in Ghana. However, this surgery too was a failure. Through the course of next two and a half years she endured a series of five failed hip replacement surgeries at the same hospital, with one failure after another. In total, Salifu underwent six failed hip replacement surgeries in Ghana. Her condition had been worsening with each repeated surgery.
In Salifu’s case the cause was recurrent hip joint dislocation. Her hip was dislocated after six failed surgeries with almost 3 cm shortening of the leg. She had intense pain, walked with limp and shortening of leg. Her movement was severely restricted and she had intense pain in her hip. Revision hip replacement is normally a more challenging and complex procedure than the first surgery, and her accident and repeated failed surgeries had made this even more difficult and challenging.
Dr Vikram Shah says, “We revised her acetabulum (socket of the hip bone in which the femur fits) with special instrumentation with no bone loss. Larger size cup and screws were used to fix the socket and special kind of plastic liner was used to prevent future dislocation. Revision surgery sometimes also requires bone grafting, for which we need large amount of bone. At Shalby we have a bone bank for this. She was kept on bed rest for 3 weeks for healing. After this, she was made to walk with walker support. And after six weeks she could walk without limp, shortening of leg and pain.”
Dr Vikram Shah says, “At Shalby we perform almost 10,000 joint replacement surgeries in a year, which is highest in the world. Along with primary surgeries, we also get a large number of complex cases for revision surgeries from all across the world. About 250 of these are complex and revision hip replacement surgeries. Each case has a challenge of its own, but this particular case was unique and difficult as the patient had undergone surgeries six times already. We are happy she has been treated after five long years and can now lead a pain-free life.”
Dr Vikram Shah is a world-renowned joint replacement surgeon and Founder Chairman & Managing Director of Shalby Hospitals, a chain of 11 hospitals spread across eight cities. He has played a prominent role in popularizing joint replacement surgery in India and has performed highest number of these surgeries in the world.
