Indian doctors shine, with high risk skull reconstruction surgery on Iraqi boy
A 14 month old Iraqi child who had disfigured face successfully underwent a high-risk skull reconstruction surgery in a hospital in Delhi. It’s said that the kid is recuperating well. The surgery has once again revealed Indian medical fraternity’s prowess in the global medical field.
The boy had to spend his first year with a deformed skull- the Crouzons Syndrome with cranial synostosis. Parts of the boy’s skull were fused prematurely which caused the skull’s abnormal shape. In the case of the boy- Baby Layth, six to seven fibrous sutures in the skull were fused together permanently.
Also, owing to the abnormality, the child’s brain didn’t have enough space to grow, resulting in severe headache.
As time passed, the boy’s eyes started to bulge out since his brain began pushing for space to grow. He had ceased to feed, sleep and visibly suffered from excruciating pain.
How the doctors tackled the problem
“If untreated, this could have also resulted in fatal consequences like permanent damage to the brain, permanent mental disorder, vascular damage to his nerves and other life-shattering health issues, hampering his way of life before it even began. Globally, incidence of Crouzon syndrome is currently estimated to occur in 1.6 out of every 100,000 people,” said Dr Manoj K Johar, Director and Head of Department of Plastic Surgery, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Patparganj.
The doctors made a gap in the child’s skull so that there would be space for the brain to grow.
As per Dr. Sanjeev Dua, Director, Neurosurgery, Max Hospital, “The purpose of the surgery was to correct the physical deformation and maximize the functionality of the baby. The front half of the skull was raised to not only recreate gaps that would allow brain growth, but also to correct the shape.”
A three-dimensional surgery was also conducted on the baby. According to Dr. Johar, the purpose of the surgery was to normalize the shapes of the forehead, eye sockets and head.
The surgery to reconstruct the skull, which took nearly 10 hours to finish was done by a team of experts.
Earlier, the child was without hope but now he looks visibly healthy. As the boy’s relative Ghadfer Khaleel said, Our baby is fine now. Earlier his eyes were bulging out which made him look very different and it really scared us.”
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