Mumbai-based doctors reconstruct jaw using leg bone

A 52-year-old man who was suffering from an advanced stage of oral cancer underwent a challenging procedure last month where his deformed jaw was reconstructed using a bone from his left leg, after removing the cancerous ulcer, by a team of doctors at a city hospital.

The patient had developed cancer due to chewing of tobacco and had ignored the painless ulcer in his mouth until he had problems in eating and drinking. After consulting with doctors, in a complicated procedure which went on for over eight hours on 24 November, the cancerous ulcer was removed from the patient's mouth, which resulted in the deformation of the jaw, neck, and cheek on the left side.

"The cancer was in an advanced stage, however biopsy results showed that it could be operated upon, so we went ahead and were able to clear the cancerous glands from the cheek however as the ulcer had grown so huge we literally had to remove the left half of his face, including a part of the jaw and some teeth," said Dr Satish Rao, Consultant, Surgical Oncology, Jaslok Hospital, where the surgery took place.

The patient had requested to make his face look normal after the procedure, hence a Plastic Surgeon, followed up immediately where a bone from the left leg along with overlying muscle and skin were used to reconstruct the severely deformed jaw. The blood vessels of the neck were later connected with those of the bone muscle, and to minimize the marks on the face, the entire procedure was done using only a single incision in the neck. The patient was discharged last week and will continue radiation therapy to prevent a relapse of cancer.

"The high sugar (due to diabetes) added to the challenges during the surgery. The patient is now satisfied with the way he looks. He is lucky to have survived and gotten back a near-normal face, after letting cancer develop for so long. The disease not to be afraid of, when detected early, the complications are reduced and it can be cured. People should not ignore ulcers just because they are painless when they don't dissolve with the general medicine," added Dr Rao.