Road to Recovery

Correcting a painful problem with Total Hip
Replacement

THE CASE

A 65-year old man from Nigeria suffered a fracture along with hip dislocation in a road traffic accident. He did not undergo any treatment and kept walking on it for a period of 3-4 years. Over a period of time, he developed a shortening of 3-4 inch in his limbs and eventually started experiencing extreme pain. He had become very weak and inactive. When he visited BLK to consult Dr. Mrinal Sharma, he was evaluated and advised Total Hip Replacement as a lasting solution.

THE PROCEDURE

X-Ray of the patient’s hip joint showed a wandering acetabulum with proximal migration of the femur. CT scan of the pelvis showed a large and widened acetabular cavity with loss of postero-superior wall. The surgery required reconstruction of acetabulum with bone graft. The defect was of the size of a cricket ball. Dr. Sharma had to reconstruct the defect in the posterior-superior wall of acetabulum with the autograft (obtained from femoral head) and fixed it with two 6.5 screws.The defect in acetabulum had to be filled with allograft procurred from the bone bank.

A cemented cup was placed into the acetabular socket and an uncemented femoral stem was placed in the femoral canal. The hip was reduced and the limb length was restored.

THE RESULT

The intervention gave the desired result and the patient recovered in the expected way. He is now pain free with a normal gait and has returned to his home country as a happy man.

Dr. Mrinal Sharma
Consultant
Joint Replacement Specialist
BLK Centre for Orthopaedics,
Joint Reconstruction
& Spine Surgery
BLK Super Speciality
Hospital, New Delhi