JEDDAH, 9 November 2003 — A successful operation to correct a spinal deformity was performed in Dr. Suleiman Fakeeh Hospital last week.
Dr. Vladimir Janecek, an orthopedic surgeon and spinal deformity correction expert, and his team operated on the deformed spine. The operation under general anesthesia lasted more than five hours. The patient was a 14-year-old Saudi girl suffering from a severe dorsal spinal deformity known as scoliosis.
The girl had an S-shaped side-to-side spinal deformity which developed last year and was causing excruciating pain. “A delay in treatment would have led to permanent deformity and would have affected other vital organs in her body,” said Dr. Yahia Ibrahim, assistant manager and director of PR at the hospital.
The girl has now regained her normal upright posture and normal gait. She is recovering at the hospital and undergoing physiotherapy and is in high spirits.
“Thank God, I’m better now psychologically; there is some pain but the physiotherapy helps and the doctor said that I could go back to school after a month,” she told Arab News.
Scoliosis is a side-to-side deviation from the body’s normal frontal axis. This, however, is a limited definition since the deformity can occur in varying degrees in all three planes: back-front, side-to-side and top-to-bottom.
Treatment varies according to the deformity’s cause, location, magnitude, patient’s maturity and evidence of progression. Treatment decisions are based on a complex equation taking such factors fully into account. Modern bracing techniques provide cosmetic braces which allow patients to continue their routine activities including sport. Modern methods of surgical management allow for patients’ rapid mobilization and return to routine daily activity.
