The Hindu : New Delhi News : Dehra Dun doctor performs rare surgical feat

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 29, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Dehra Dun doctor performs rare surgical feat

Removes largest bone tumour; gets a place in the Guinness Book

NEW DELHI: The rare surgical feat of removing a 16.5kg malignant bone tumour -- so far the largest of its kind -- from the right femur (thighbone) of a patient has earned for an Indian doctor a place in the latest edition of Guinness Book of world records.

Dr. B.K.S. Sanjay, Director of the Dehra Dun-based Doon Paramedical Hospital in Uttaranchal, carried out a 10-hour surgery on 35-year-old Naresh Kumar.at the Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences, Dehra Dun on June 10, 2002.

The tumour (chondrosarcoma) had a maximum length of 45 cm and was 30 cm wide.

Naresh, tormented by the shooting pain in his thigh because of the tumour, had given up as doctors had refused to carry out the surgery fraught with great risks.

"I took up the challenge and succeeded in removing the tumour from the patient's body after 10 hours of surgery,'' he told UNI.

Dr Sanjay has already made a hat-trick of appearances for his surgical feats in the Limca Book of Records during 2002, 2003 and 2004.

He first entered the Limca Book in 2002 for performing a hip replacement surgery on a 98-year-old high-risk patient -- Mangat Singh of Muzaffarnagar -- on June 19, 2001. The cemented bipolar hip replacement was done to replace the broken neck femur.

Mangat Singh had slipped in the bathroom and broken his hip. He consulted many surgeons, but all of them refused to carry out the surgery due to his old age, cardiac problems, high risk of surgery and side-effects of anaesthesia.

However, Dr. Sanjay took the risk, achieving the rare distinction of performing the high-risk surgery on the 98-year-old patient.

``I could have earned a place in Guinness Book for this feat itself as the world record stands for the surgery carried out on Queen Elizabeth II, who was then 94-year-old,'' Dr Sanjay said. ``However, I was unable to contact Guinness Book officials then, which deprived me a place in the world record book.''

In the 2003 edition of Limca Book, he found a place for successfully treating the cancerous limb of 12-year-old boy from Muzaffarnagar by re-implanting the patient's own autoclaved (steam sterilised) bone tumour during his limb salvage surgery. The patient had osteosarcoma in his right calf bone, which is conventionally treated through mid-thigh amputation. This was the first surgery of its kind in the country which saved the young boy from the trauma of amputation.

Later he entered the same record book in its 2004 edition for the surgical feat that has now also earned him a place in the Guinness Book under the category of `largest bone tumour'.

Dr. Sanjay also has the distinction of being the first Indian orthopaedic surgeon who has evolved an innovative procedure of re-implantation of autoclaved (steam sterilised) bone tumour.

He has been awarded numerous fellowships at home and abroad. A visiting professor at several universities, he has delivered lectures at universities in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and the US.

A Fellow of International Medical Sciences Academy and the National Academy of Medical Sciences, he is also the founder-president of Uttaranchal State Orthopaedic Association.

On the basis of his overall accomplishments and professional contributions, the American Biographical Institute has listed Dr Sanjay in The Contemporary Who's Who reference book.

-- UNI

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