LIMB SALVAGE SURGERY

This case ilustrates the possibilities of wound surgery even in the most difficult of situations. This was a 35 year old male, diabetic with severe wound and osteomyelitis bone infection of all bones in middle of foot. We performed a surgery as far as we know was never performed in the USA. Everyone else suggested an amputation of the leg.

As you can see the wounds are extensive.

PROCEDURE: first we removed all ofthe infected bones in middle of foot and cleaned up the wound. Next we applied an external fixator, this is a scaffold outside of the foot that holds the bones exactly where we want them. Then weused this device to fold the foot in half just enough so that we could stitch up that giant wound.

Here you can see the wound healing well one month after surgery.

As you can see here the wound is stitched up and now we wait until the skin heals , usually a few weeks. AND THEN - we use the external fixation device to slowly unfold the foot. In the picture you can see the yellow arrow which shows how we move the device forward , that causes the foot to rise , indicated by the blue arrow. Since the wound is healed it will stay healed. when we get the foot to its old position we leave the fixator on for another month and then we remove.

Wound almost healed 3 months later -foot straight…. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED