Balloon Kyphoplasty: relief for backbone fracture, cancer patients
New Delhi, May 6: Balloon Kyphoplasty, a new minimally invasive procedure that repairs and simultaneously offers significant relief from debilitating pain of the vertebral fracture caused by osteoporosis and cancer affecting spinal cord ,is being introduced in India for the first time.
The technique, which was available only in the US, Europe and some other developed countries, would now be available in few selected hospitals of the capital including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Safdarjung Hospital and Indian Spinal Injuries Centre.
Dr Anand Agarwal, Orthopaedic and Spine Surgeon, Medway Maritime Hospital, London, trained about 35 prominent spinal and neuro surgeons in the technique during the past two days here so that they could become familiar with the technique and use it properly to provide relief to the patients.
Dr Agarwal,General Secretary of the World Endoscopic Navigated and Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery and British Society of Computer Aided Orthopaedic Surgery, told UNI that Balloon Kyphoplasty would be useful especially to the patients suffering from fractures of the vertebra caused due to osteoporosis, common among elderly. It also provides relief to the patients of Metastatic legion and Multiple Myeloma, types of cancer which causes a lot of pain once the disease spreads to various organs.
''The treatment involves insertion of orthopaedic balloons to gently elevate the bone fragments in an attempt to return them to the correct position. Balloon Kyphoplasty is the latest technique adapted by the doctors all over the world for treating osteoporosis disease. Patients can experience immediate pain relief after its use,'' he said.
He said with the changing lifestyle the life span of people is increasing everywhere including India and ageing leads to loss of calcium in bones causing Osteoporosis, which is a systemic skeletal disease.
In the United States about seven lakh Vertebral Compression Fractures(VCFs) occur each year and approximately 150,000 people are hospitalised due to pain and medical management associated with VCFs ,resulting in the cost exceeding 1.6 billion dollars annually.
Though no data about osteoporosis is available in India, the number of patients suffering from the disease is expected to be high due to factors like increasing longevity and vegetarian diet, generally deficient in calcium.
Dr Agarwal said that often people, especially women, in their 60s and 70s bend due to vertebral fractures caused by low bone density. They suffer from back pain, height loss, decreased lung capacity and impaired function. The patients also lose appetite, suffer from pain in lungs and increased morbidity. They even have difficulty in sleeping. They often suffer from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and alteration in social role.
After the first VCF, the chance of having second increases five folds. After second, the chance of subsequent VCF go up by 12 times and after two or more the chances of further VCFs are 75 folds. Thereby increasing the suffering.The technique can be used to provide relief to such patients and help them get back on their feet soon.
Even for the patients suffering from the pain of advanced stages of Multiple Myeloma, who have less than six months of lives, this technique is very useful as it is safer. Due to the extreme weakness, they cannot sustain the risks involved in the traditional surgery. Being minimally invasive, both the chances of infections and the time involved in the surgery are less and thereby it improves the quality of life of the patient.
It not only restores the vertebral body height, but also corrects angular deformity, reduces pain significantly and also the number of days in bed. It also improves the quality of life and activities of daily living and mobility.
Dr Agarwal, who has done the maximum number (about 500) of Balloon Kyphoplasty surgery in the United Kingdom, during the past four years when it was first introduced there, said the cost of the disposable kit involved in surgery was 9000 dollars in the UK while it was being introduced in India at 3000 dollars by the US based company Kypho, which means in India it would cost Rs 1.3 lakh.
The cost of surgery was comparable to the traditional surgical technique while it was safer and less time consuming, he added.
However, training of the surgeons using the technique is pre-requisite and globally 11,200 surgeons have been trained in using it. In India, initially 35 surgeons have been trained by using cadavers and by the end of next year about 200 to 500 Indian surgeons would be trained. In Japan, about 1000 surgeons would be trained in the technique by next year. Globally, about 35500 patients have undergone Balloon Kyphoplasty while in China every year 1000 patients undergo it.
UNI