Max Hospital Treated Patient Suffering From Bone Tumor!

Zainab Khan (name changed), 18 began noticing pain in her left shoulder every day but she thought it was just a muscle pain which would go off with time. But nothing like that ever happened.

She first experienced pain in November 2016. “I don’t really remember when it first happened but it aggravated with time,” she told.

Zainab and her family consulted a lot of doctors here and there who gave her painkillers. “I got relief from pain for a temporary period but I could feel the lump and pain after a short period of time. Nobody could actually tell what was it?”

After a while when she got her MRI and CT scan done and consulted an orthopedic and she was diagnosed with osteoid osteoma which is a benign bone tumour. It is located very near to the shoulder joint.

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Dr. Shireesh Mittal, Senior Consultant and Interventional Radiologist, Department of Radiology, Max Hospital Dehradun say, “It can occur anywhere and can involve either a single bone or several bones. Osteoid osteoma is reported to occur in the cortex of the shafts of long bones in 80-90% of cases. Osteomas tend to be less than 1.5 cm in size. Also, Osteoid osteoma is a lump of children and young adults, and it is very rare that it will happen in older adults over the age of 50. ”

Typically patients get relief of their pain with aspirin, ibuprofen or other anti-inflammatory agents which happened in Zainab’s case too.

Osteoid osteoma causes a lot of pain in patients. “The pain increased at night and was unbearable. It was dull, but sometimes the pain was so sharp and got worse with every activity I used to do,” said Zainab.

“We did not have the slightest idea that it would go this extent,” expressed Zainab’s mother.

After beating around the bush for almost a year, Zainab and her family consulted at Max Hospital, Dehradun.

After diagnosing and studying her test reports, Dr. Shireesh Mittal decided to perform the surgery here at Max Super Speciality Hospital itself.

The traditional surgeries are quite extensive; require resection of large areas of bone and implantation of bone grafts. These have a higher risk of complications and a longer recovery period.

But today the method of choice in many cases is “Radiofrequency Ablation”. Initially, these types of cases were referred to metro cities but now are successfully being done at Max Hospital Dehradun. Because of the precision, accuracy, and risk involved in the surgery, nobody in the region has dared to take this up till date.

How is the Procedure Performed?

During this procedure, the osteoma nidus is heated up for a period of approximately 6 minutes with two overlapping sessions and thus ablated (heated). The minimally invasive technique is a day care procedure (usually takes 1 hour) with a short recovery time. As it is a daycare procedure Zainab left for home the same day.

Since the place of osteoid osteoma is usually very painful, the procedure is performed under local anaesthesia with the biopsy needle, cannula and drill needle which are used to access the osteoid osteoma. It needs expertise as the procedure needs to be done without damaging nerves, major blood vessels, and the skin.

 “We are very happy and satisfied with the advanced treatment we got at Max Hospital Dehradun. While everyone told that we will have to go to Delhi for the treatment, Dr. Shireesh Mittal, gave us hope and made the surgery possible here itself. It is a humble gesture for us and a big accomplishment for the hospital too. We wish everyone all the very best.” Said a happy Zainab and her family members agreed.

Zainab loves spending her time cooking and studying. She was contented that she can now concentrate on her studies.