An elderly 66 year old female came to Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital’s orthopaedic oncology clinic, headed by Dr. Himanshu Rohela, about 4 weeks ago with an inability to walk and severe pain left thigh from past 7 months.
She consulted multiple hospitals for these complaints and was informed that she suffers from a tumour in thigh bone for which the only treatment was amputation of her left lower limb.
Scanning through the previous medical records, Dr. Rohela could reach to a conclusion that she was suffering from a cancer of left thigh bone (chondrosarcoma of left femur). The Centre for Cancer undertook all the staging investigations to look for any distant metastasis and fortunately she had cancer disease limited to her left thigh bone only. Historically, the treatment of chondrosarcoma hasn’t changed since the inception and the only treatment of such bone cancers is surgical. Neither radiotherapy nor any form of chemotherapy is effective in such tumours.
The major concern and the reason she was advised amputation at other centres was the proximity of tumour to the major blood vessel of leg and removal of tumour completely was challenging. Dr. Rohela repeated the MRI of her limb along with MR angiogram to see the patency of the major vessels and after reviewing the images the team was confident that we could safely achieve complete tumour removal.
Total thigh bone replacement is an extensive surgery, needs expertise and a skilled post operative ICU care and a good rehabilitation protocol. Not many centres in India provide this form of extensive surgery to such patients. At Kokilaben Hospital, we were able to preserve her limb while safely and adequately removing the tumour bone completely and replacing with a new metal thigh bone for life to continue bearing weight on her own cancer free limb.
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