India

Chennai hospital to attempt surgical separation of Pygopagus twin boys

The surgical separation of a pair of Pygopagus twin boys at the Apollo Specialty Hospital in Vanagaram will be the first-ever attempted in India.

Prayers are indeed necessary for the survival and speedy recovery of nine-month-old Ericana and Eluidi, hailing from Kasumulu village in Tanzania, who are joined at the tail-end of their spines and share a single anus and rectum, for they will be undergoing an 18-hour-long ordeal at the operating table.

According to Dr Venkat Sripathi, Senior Consultant Paediatric Surgeon, Apollo Hospitals, conjoined twins are seen in one in 200,000 deliveries, with 60 per cent of them being stillborn and 35 per cent of the remaining dying within a few days or months of birth. “However, fusion at the buttocks (Pygopagus) is very rare and account for less than 17 per cent of all conjoined twins,” he said at a media briefing here on Friday.

“Till now in medical literature, only 30 sets of Pygopagus twins have been reported, out of which 26 are female and only four are male,” he pointed out.

The male twins arrived at the Apollo Hospitals for surgical separation under a joint project ‘Save a child’s heart initiative’ with the Tanzanian government. The cost of the surgery, estimated to be around `30-40 lakh, will be met by the Tanzanian government.

Dr Sripathi said the unique and challenging aspect of the separation was the fused phallus, which had to be delicately separated to give each baby a functional penis. A team of 20 doctors from the specialties of neurosurgery, plastic surgery, paediatric surgery and paediatric urology would attempt the separation. “The twins have a 75 per cent chance of survival,” he said to a query.

Awaiting their most transforming moments in their life, the bubbly boys have learnt to speak Tamil from the nurses and lisp words such as athai and thatha.

Source; New Indian Express

Free insulin for poor children in Delh

Many diabetic children from the economically weaker sections of the society in the national capital will be provided insulin free of cost, said a Delhi based diabetic centre on Sunday.

Delhi Diabetic Research Center (DDRC) will provide insulin free of cost to 150 poor children suffering from Type 1 diabetics.

The initiative was announced by DDRC at a day-long event at Talkatora Stadium in New Delhi.

“Children with Type 1 diabetes need daily dose of insulin, regular monitoring of glucose level, periodic visits to the doctors and subsequent pathology tests, which becomes a bit unaffordable for the weaker section of the society,” said Ashok Jhingan, diabetologist and chairman, DDRC.

All the children provided free insulin are between the age group of 0-18.

“Initially we will provide free insulin to 150 children and slowly shall extend the reach to more children,” Jinghan added.

Source: ndtv

 

Conjoined twins Saba, Farah in critical condition in Bihar

The conjoined twins, Saba and Farah in Bihar are said to be in critical condition and have been admitted to a leading hospital in Patna.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court had ordered the Bihar government to look after their medical expenses and provide all kinds of financial help to the family. The twins share a vital blood vessel in the brain. While Farah has two kidneys, Saba has none.

The family of Saba and Farah were provided financial aid after they had rejected surgery to separate the two of them in the absence of funds.

Dr Shyam Sundar, who has been treating the twins said that the twins have been facing complications from the past few days. “Farah has been bleeding from the nose from the past five days with some respiratory tract infection and the blood pressure of both the twins is low. We are still evaluating the cause of the bleeding and a multi speciality team is having a look”, he said.

In case, an operation is being carried out to separate the head, it would prove to be a real medical challenge ,according to Doctor Sundar.

Source: Zee news

Dengue cases in New Delhi reach 5,462

The number of dengue cases in the capital has reached 5,462, a municipal health officer said Monday.

Though the number reported every week has reduced, the cases are still being witnessed in different parts of the city.

Most cases have been reported from the north zone (2,167), followed by south (1,642) and east (1,508) zones.

An additional 69 cases have been reported from the National Capital Region, including parts of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

Having surpassed the 2012 figure, the number of cases this year is nearing the 2010 figure (6,229).

Source: New Indian Express

Bangalore hospital treats paralyzed patients with stem cell therapy

In what could signal a leap forward in the treatment of spinal cord injuries, the Bangalore Institute of Regenerative Medicine at Live 100 Hospital claims to have successfully used stem cell therapy to restore feeling to people paralysed by injuries, accidents or natural causes.

According to the hospital, its doctors have been treating paralysed below the neck patients using the concept of regenerative medicine and stem cell therapy for quite some time before making the results public. The patients who benefited by the treatment walk out of the hospital using a crutch or walker, with some showing “tremendous improvement”.

Balakrishan Baldev, 42, had been bedridden for the last ten years on account of damaged spine and wrong treatment. The first patient to be benefitted by the stem cell therapy, his eyes glistened with tears as he walked again after he underwent the surgery of spinal cord in May this year and has gained 95 per cent sensation. The development raises the possibility that spinal injury victims could walk again.

Dr H N Nagaraj, chairman and managing director, Live 100 Hospital, told India Medical Times, “The concept of regenerative medicine was started by me way back in 2002 in a laboratory environment until 2010. We started treating patients in 2010 and approximately 40-42 patients have undergone stem cell surgery since then. The results have been satisfactory and few have recovered to a great extent. While it might take less time for some, for others the healing and regeneration could take a long time.”

“As the spine injuries lead to acute loss of spinal cord vascularity and damage spinal cord, we identify and treat them using great precautions that repair the patients’ spinal cords and encourage the cords to heal,” he said.

“The hospital receives patients from different parts of the country and the world. People from Pakistan, Mexico and Yemen have been pouring in for the treatment. The conception that the treatment is expensive is not entirely true. As the treatment gives you focused therapy, a patient does not spend his money on wrong and unnecessary treatments hence every penny spent is worth the results he get. But still, at our hospital, we do take into account the income factor of the patient and do give subsidy to the needy. Our objective is to help everybody,” he added.

The therapy has also given a new lease of life to Khalid Abdullah, a 40-year-old soldier from Yemen who underwent a surgery of the spinal cord at the hospital after a bullet hit him four years ago. Before choosing India, he had visited several countries for the treatment. Paralysed waist down, he partly regained sensation in the legs after the surgery.

“Two levels of his spinal cord were crushed, a part of the spinal cord was removed in the surgery as it was damaged. He underwent stem cell treatment six months ago and has regained sensation in his lower limbs,” Dr Nagaraj said.

“My future plan is evolve the stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine in a fully functional department and involve some of the finest doctors in the field. We want to use stem cell for the treatment of other diseases too like diabetes etc. We want to make a strong team of doctors that would also include a neuro psychiatrist as the patients affected by trauma are generally disturbed and have a tendency to go into depression,” Dr Nagaraj said.

Several breakthrough researches in this area have corroborated that stem cells can develop into replacement cells for damaged organs or body parts. Unravelling the potential that stem cells hold, an answer to several diseases that are at present incurable could be discovered.

source: Twikle

Cervical cancer: the top cancer-killer among Indian women

What is cervical cancer?

Cervical cancer is cancer of the cervix or cancer of the entrance to the uterus (womb). It can also be defined as a type of cancer that happens in the cells of the cervix. Cervix is the lower part of the uterus that connects to the vagina.

What causes cervical cancer and how you get the disease?

Cervical cancer affects mostly women over the age of 30. It is believed that cervical cancer is caused by a virus called human papillomavirus or HPV. The disease can be contracted through sexual contact with someone who has it.

While there are different types of the HPV virus, not all types of HPV cause cervical cancer. Some of them cause genital warts, but other types may not show any symptoms.

About 132,000 cases of cervical cancer diagnosed in India yearly

Gravely, the disease kills more women in India than any other countries in the world. Cervical cancer affects approximately 132,000 Indian women annually, of which an astounding 72,000 die, according to the Cervical Cancer-Free Coalition.

Source: Zee News

 

India’s absolete visa rules undermine medical tourism

India, long seen as a centre for cost-effective treatment by people around the world, is losing its competitive edge in the medical tourism space.

The strict visa regime is making people give the country a miss in favour of other Southeast Asian nations like Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia which, although costlier, are seen as more welcoming of medical tourists. While there are no studies to show how much business is being lost annually, experts say getting a medical visa to India is almost impossible without hassles.

“Stringent visa rules are really ruining our prospects of becoming a hub for medical tourism,” says Prathap C Reddy, founder and chairman of Apollo Hospitals. The medical tourism industry, valued at $10.5 billion globally in 2012, is estimated to reach a $32.5 billion by 2019. India was able to garner a chunk of this revenue initially, but despite its obvious advantages in terms of quality and costs, the country has been unable to grow the business, says Reddy.

“Our infection rate is only half of the best hospitals in the world. India not only has clinical excellence, but it also has cost benefits. Having got that brand, we would have expected that India would become a great attraction for people, but that has not happened,” he adds. The country attracted only 350,000 medical tourists in 2012 compared to 1.2 million by Thailand and 610,000 by Singapore, according to data from Patients Beyond Borders, a guidebook for medical tourism.

As things stand today, delays in visa processing are rampant, even in case of genuine medical emergencies, and the fee for visa processing is much higher when compared to Thailand or Malaysia.

Another visa-related hassle is the requirement for foreigners to periodically report to the police during their stay in India. “How can anyone ask a patient to go and report at a police station?” says Reddy.

Pradeep Thukral, chief executive officer of SafeMed, a medical travel facilitation agency and founder of the India Medical Tourism Association, says visa application process for medical tourists is cumbersome, to say the least: patients are asked to come to the Indian embassy which is not easy when they are sick, furnish a whole lot of documents like bank statements and medical reports and then referred to the embassy doctor for a second opinion. “It seems they try their best to dissuade the patient from going to India,” adds Thukral.

Experts says tweaking the visa rules will go a long way in making India, which currently attracts only 3 per cent of the global medical tourists, an attractive destination for patients.

“As we aspire to harness the true potential of this enormous market, particularly against the backdrop of an attractive dollar/rupee conversion rate, a liberal visa regime would be of great help. Speedier grant of visas and their easy availability would go further in enabling the Indian medical sector,” says Vishal Bali, group chief executive officer, Fortis Healthcare.

He says adequate public infrastructure outside the hospitals as in other countries would further strengthen India’s position. In Thailand, for instance, medical tourists are treated with tea on arrival while they wait for their visa and then are taken in a bus waiting outside the airport to the hospital. Thailand promoted medical tourism when its currency depreciated in the 1990s and today it is one of the largest medical tourism destinations in the world. Singapore, too, is fast catching up, even as treatment costs there are comparable to those in the US.

“The governments in these countries help the industry with incentives and other support. In India, the government should also do the same and remove the barriers,” says Reddy.

However, it is not just Southeast Asian countries which are becoming a competition for India. For the North American patients, destinations with improving healthcare infrastructure such as Mexico, Costa Rica and Colombia are fast emerging as attractive options, despite higher costs than India, say international healthcare experts.

Some experts even go to the extent of saying there is a case for abolishing medical visas altogether. Josef Woodman, chief executive officer, Patients Beyond Boarders, says medical visa ipso facto makes things more complicated and serves little purpose. “I see no reason not to abolish medical visas”.

There’s no doubt medical tourism’s potential in terms of job creation is huge. Reddy says the sector can create 8-10 million jobs. To add to this, unlike Indonesia or some other counties, which don’t offer liver or heart transplants, Indian hospitals can do everything which is done anywhere in the world. There success rates are impressive too. In Apollo for instance, the success rate for heart-related issues is around 99 per cent, and for liver transplants, it is about 90 per cent. To build on this advantage, Thukral says the government should look at issuing medical visas on arrival, provided the patient is carrying a minimum threshold of money for treatment. Among other suggestions, providing a multiple-entry visa for one year would help the medical tourism sector as well.

Source: Business Standard

Minimal access lung transplant performed at Chennai hospital

Lung transplant surgeons at Global Health City here claim to have performed India’s first successful minimal access transplant for lung on a 61-year-old recipient

According to the doctors, the surgery was performed on November 24 on Raja Babu Shah who was diagnosed to have Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis several years ago. It is a progressive interstitial lung disease and shows poor response to maximal medical management.

The patient, who had been confined to bed and wheelchair for more than a year, was on the waiting list for lung transplantation under the Cadaver Transplantation Programme of Tamil Nadu since July 2013.

On November 24, a suitable donor became available at Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore. So Raja was offered a lung transplantation, which would give him a near normal life without oxygen, according to a statement by Global Hospitals.

“Raja Babu Shah is the recipient of India’s first recipient of minimal access lung transplant. He is also the oldest patient in India to receive a lung transplantation and his recuperation is going to be reduced with less pain due to minimal access method adopted,” said Dr Vijil Rahulan, head of department of respiratory medicine and senior consultant pulmonologist, Global Health City.

Dr Jnanesh Thacker, senior consultant cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon and specialist in heart and lung transplantation for Global Hospitals Group, who headed the surgical team, said, “We did a minimal access anterior-axillary thoracotomy with an incision, 7 inches long, just below the nipple. We ensured that the internal mammary artery is preserved.”

Dr Nandkishore Kapadia, senior consultant, cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon, Global Health City, added, “This was like a time bound mission shown in the movies, with the cadaver lung retrieval done at CMC Vellore, transported to Global Health City, Chennai, within a time span of 105 minutes, followed immediately by a four-hour recipient surgery.”

Dr Ravindranath, chairman and managing director, Global Hospitals Group, said, “I was pleased to know that the patient was off the ventilator on the next day and he walked inside his room on the third post operative day.”

Source: India medical Times

First ever retrograde gene therapy performed on human heart

 

An Indian origin surgeon has performed a historic first retrograde gene therapy, a novel procedure designed to deliver stem cells to the heart to repair damaged muscle and arteries in the most minimally invasive way possible.

Amit Patel, MD, director of Clinical Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering and an associate professor in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Utah School of Medicine performed the therapy on American actor, Ernie Lively.

Patel started investigating cell and gene-based therapies for the treatment of heart disease 12 years ago, but only recently received FDA approval to try the therapy on Lively, who was the first of several patients anxious to receive the treatment.

Patel and his team came up with the idea of retrograde heart therapy, a concept that has been discussed for 50 years.

“The genes basically act like a light house with a bright signal. They say, ‘ How can we help the ships that need to get to the port – which is the heart -get there. When the signal, or the light from the SDF-1, which is that gene, shows up, the stem cells from not inside your own heart and from those that circulate from your blood and bone marrow all get attracted to the heart which is injured, and they bring reinforcements to make it stronger and pump more efficiently,” Patel said.

Source: truth dive

Indian Origin Doctor in Britain Gets Excellence Award

An Indian origin doctor in Britain has received an excellence award for his work across the medical space.

“Dr. (Jaswinder S.) Bamrah is a dedicated medical professional conducting a large number of lectures nationally to psychiatrists, general practitioners, to other disciplines and voluntary organizations such as Alzheimer’s Disease Society and PACE on a variety of topics, such as the role of carers in the community, dementia, which antidepressant to choose, suicides and treatment of major depression in the Asian community,” said the panel that chose Bamrah, consultant psychiatrist in Manchester, for the Asian Lite’s Professional Excellence Award.

Councillor Afzal Khan, a former mayor of Manchester, headed the panel.

Peter W. Mount, chairman of the Central Manchester Foundation Trust, presented the award to Bamrah. Among those present on the occasion were Lord Mayor of Manchester Naeem Ul Hassan, Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd and British Medical Association Vice Chairman Kailash Chand.

Bamrah obtained his medical degree from Patiala’s Government Medical College in 1978. He was enrolled at London’s Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1985.

Source: The Indian Express