An accident four years back left Kavlaynova Oygul, from Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent, with a broken thigh bone that refused to heal despite several medical interventions. Already 130 kg and unable to walk all these years, the 34-year-old woman developed more complications due to morbid obesity.
Thanks to a complicated four-hour long surgery successfully carried out by doctors at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals here, Oygul is today all set to stand on her feet and walk again, crucial to her survival as she needs to work out to reduce her weight.
"Life has been very difficult over the past four years. I am thankful to the doctors in New Delhi who have given me new hope of being able to lead a normal and healthy life," Oygul said in a statement released by Apollo Hospitals.
Oygul's was a case of non-union of fracture of the left femur. Non-union of fracture means an absence of the broken bone getting jointed due to a complication.
A team of doctors led by Dr Rajeev Sharma, senior consultant, orthopedician and joint replacement surgeon, performed a complex surgery on her leg to rejoin the broken thigh bone.
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What added to the complication was the fact that at 130 kg, Oygul had a body mass index (BMI) of 60, making her morbidly obese.
A Body Mass Index (BMI) of more than 30 is classified as obese while a BMI of more than 40 is called morbid obesity.
This puts a patient at major health risks associated with excessive weight, including hypertension and diabetes.
The latter in turn makes surgical intervention as well as administering anesthesia very difficult.
"The patient presented a complex case. She suffered a terrible accident in which she suffered a fracture of her left femur bone, just above the knee. The bone broke into two parts but even after a sufficient amount of time passed, it refused to heal," Dr Sharma said.
The fracture was operated upon using a special 14 inches titanium locking plate with massive bone grafting.
"Since the fracture had not healed on its own, we needed to add a bone graft and provide a kind of a scaffold to the bone to be able to grow, regenerate and heal itself," Sharma said.
Since the woman is obese and her leg will by default bear the pressure of her body, this support was extremely important.
"It was a complex surgery lasting four hours. Operating a patient successfully of 60 BMI is a very rare surgery," Sharma noted.
