Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital, Dwarka successfully treated the impossible case of bone cancer of a 42 years old patient. A 1.25 kg tumour in the thigh bone formed a life-threatening risk for the patient.

The huge malignant tumour was life threatening and needed treatment, but things seemed to only deteriorate even after 3 chemo sessions. The only option that was suggested to him was amputation of the leg.

Dr Aashish Chaudhry, Managing Director and Sr. Consultant - Orthopaedics & Joint Replacement, Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital, Dwarka and Dr Arun Giri, Head of Surgical Oncology, Aakash Super Speciality Hospital, Dwarka told him that he can get rid of the humongous malignant tumour in his thigh, without having to get his leg amputated. The treatment procedure involved removal of his femur and replacing it with an implant made of alloy for him to walk normally.

Recalling the entire case Dr Aashish Chaudhry said, “We knew we could do it and replace the thigh bone with an implant. However, the size of the tumour was a great challenge and most importantly, such a surgery is not much in records due to rarity of such a case. Along with this there were other risk factors involved such as excessive blood loss and heart issues may arise in the patient. After a thorough check-up we strategized the entire plan of the treatment for Sayed Mahmood Sadat. Nevertheless, we were determined to bring his life back to something nearest to normalcy. The procedure was extremely strenuous and took almost 6 hours to remove the hip joint, femur, knee joint and then replace them with metal implants, which were in a way specially designed for this case only.”

According to a study conducted in 2016 by The South Asia Journal of Cancer, the occurrence of bone cancer in India is less than 0.2% of all cancer cases, and prevalence of the cancer in femur is even less. Whereas, globally only 3.4 out of a million cancer cases  are of osteosarcoma. Having such a rare incidence rate the treatment options available are also limited. Though this was a challenge for the doctors, they opted to replace the femur bone instead of cutting the entire leg. Total femur replacement for oncological reasons, though is not something unknown to the medical industry, but it is a highly challenging and rare practice. The entire hip-joint, femur, and knee joint was replaced with artificial implants.