The Dr Panagiotis Glavas, professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Montreal and orthopedic pediatric surgeon at CHU Sainte-Justine, and his team were able to give Charlie, a severely disabled adolescent, the hope of recovering his full ambulatory capacities.
Thanks to a series of complex interventions probably unprecedented in Quebec in pediatric orthopedic surgery, and in collaboration with a company specializing in advanced orthopedic solutions, the Dr Glavas designed and produced a cutting guide that can work around a serious problem with shin deviation preventing Charlie’s fitting using a well-adapted prosthesis.
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A dramatic story
In January 2005, 18-month-old Charlie caught the flesh-eating bacteria and had his legs amputated in the middle of the tibia. Thanks to this operation, the child’s life is saved. But the bacteria had time to infect the cells responsible for the growth of certain bones. The bones of Charlie’s legs thus grow askew, at an abnormal angle which makes fixing the prosthesis difficult and very painful.
Over the years, the boy will undergo multiple surgeries to try to correct the deviation of his shins. However, with growth, this deformation became such that his two shins presented an angle preventing any prospect of installing an effective prosthesis. The pain associated with wearing prostheses ill-suited to his very particular condition had become such that Charlie had folded back into his wheelchair.
When Charlie’s shin growth ended, the Dr Glavas, in collaboration with the Quebec company Bodycad, straightened Charlie’s left tibia and fitted him with a suitable prosthesis. The major challenge was to find the exact way to straighten the bone without weakening it with multiple saws, which took about 200 hours of work. In May 2019, the surgeon then uses a three-dimensional cutting guide fixed on the tibia to guide his saw cut in an extremely precise manner. And in order to fix the tibia after the intervention, a tailor-made plate is made to fit the particular anatomy of the tibia.
The first test to assess the quality of Charlie’s walk was so encouraging that in January the team offered the young man an intervention for his other shin.
This achievement is the subject of a report which will be broadcast on January 19 on the program. Discovery at ICI Radio-Canada Télé.
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