Complex surgery performed

CHENNAI: Two persons from Mauritius, both diagnosed with advanced cancer in the head and neck, have retained facial features after extensive reconstructive surgery at a city hospital.RT Appadu Govindasamy (59), a retired school teacher and Khemwahtee Sonah (54), a housewife, were sent to KKR ENT Hospital through a tie-up, established with the hospital by the Mauritian Ministry of Health, said Professor KK Ramalingam, founder-chairman of the KKR ENT Hospital.Using a multi-disciplinary approach including surgeons, oncologists, maxillofacial and plastic specialists, the team at KKR managed to remove the cancerous portion in the face and neck of the patients and re-constructed their face using components from the thigh, abdomen or hand, using a microvascular process called free tissue transfer.“These days, we don’t just graft tissue and skin from the leg but take it uniformly to avoid morbidity in any part of the body,” explained plastic surgeon Dr Antony Arvind. This process has got so streamlined that now they see as many as three such major surgeries a week, he added.“The only hold-up is that each surgery can take between 10-12 hours depending on how much reconstruction is required,” said Dr KK Ramalingam. Pretty much any deformity caused, can be made to look as normal as possible, he added. With speech, chewing and swalling rehabilitation therapy as well as chemotherapy rolled in, the entire procedure comes at a composite price tag of Rs 3 lakh approximately.