The Hindu : Front Page : A mission to save lives and limbs

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Saturday, Nov 04, 2006
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A mission to save lives and limbs

Ramya Kannan

Prosthetic tool lets a Chennai-based doctor avoid amputation

Photo: K. Pichumani

Mayil Vahanan Natarajan.

CHENNAI: It is not really true that there is no replacement for human tissue — just as long as there is steel. It is this belief that has set Dr. Mayil Vahanan Natarajan, senior orthopaedic surgeon based in Chennai, on the track of saving the lives and limbs of a number of people affected by bone cancer and trauma.

And there is a story behind it. About 18 years ago, Dr. Mayil Vahanan, then working at the Government General Hospital and the Regional Cancer Institute, Adyar, met a biomechanical engineer whose young daughter had bone cancer. This type of cancer occurs mostly between 15 and 20 years of age, primarily in the knee, hip and shoulder joints. Conventional treatment would have required amputation, rendering the patient disabled.

However, this surgeon suggested an approach that was contrary to the traditional method of treatment of bone tumours: he believed the limb need not be amputated. Instead, he said he was confident he could remove the diseased section of the bone, along with surrounding tissue, and replace it with a prosthetic tool. This, he believed, would ensure the limb could be saved. However, an imported prosthesis would cost lakhs of rupees and the doctor suggested that a maker in Mumbai be asked to supply the unit. The patient's father, M.C. Jayasingh, being a biomechanical engineer himself, offered to make the prosthesis.

The girl survived, with her limb intact, and today lives with a comfortable level of mobility. Thrilled, Mr. Jayasingh asked the doctor what he could do for him. "I told him to help other people, like his daughter, smile again," Dr. Mayil Vahanan says. That was how Custom Mega Prosthesis, the equipment and the procedure, came to stay.

Today, with various associations of orthopaedicians acknowledging the procedure and the equipment to be up to global standards, he has recorded a success rate of 70 per cent. Dr. Mayil Vahanan and his team have handled over 1,200 patients on the operating table. A majority of them have had durable and functional prosthetic limbs, relatively complication-free, for five to ten years.

He shares patents for some products with Arc Bio Mechanical Engineers, his technical partner, but takes no royalties. Instead, the company provides him one free prosthesis for each one it sells, to be fitted on patients at the General Hospital where he heads the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery.

The surgeon says: "We had to wait and watch for the longevity and quality of life of our patients before we could talk about this procedure." As a result, it was sold commercially only since 2000.

For a long time, Dr. Mayil Vahanan's team was the only unit performing CMP operations. He is drawing up a plan of expansion to at least 30 States.

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