Nagaland’s first tubular microdiscectomy surgery was performed at Putuonuo Nursing Home, Kohima by Naga spine surgeon, Dr Neilakuo Kire.
Kohima, May 10 (MExN): Nagaland’s first tubular microdiscectomy surgery was performed at Putuonuo Nursing Home, Kohima by Naga spine surgeon, Dr Neilakuo Kire. “The keyhole surgery took one hour with near zero blood loss. The highlight of the surgery is that the patient is able to walk ‘pain free’ within 24 hours of the surgery,” stated a press release received here.
This was performed on a 37-year-old farmer with long duration back pain and left leg weakness with wasting of the muscles. She was unable to climb stairs and was having difficulty carrying out her routine work, it stated.
Alumni of JIPMER, Dr Neilakuo Kire completed his MS Orthopaedics from CMC Kolkata and Fellowship in Hand & Micro-surgery from Coimbatore. He pursued his Fellowship in Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery from Bombay Hospital, Mumbai, training under one of the best spine surgeons in India, Dr Vishal Kundnani. Kire further completed his Fellowship in Endoscopic spine surgery under the guidance of Dr Kang Taek Lim at Good Doctor Teun Teun Hospital, Anyang, South Korea, the pioneer of inter-laminar spine endoscopy.
Kire is the first trained spine surgeon in Nagaland, the press release reported.
Advantages of ‘keyhole’ or minimally-invasive spine surgery over ‘open’ spine surgery include much smaller cuts (less than an inch), shorter hospital stay, lesser blood loss, lesser pain, early ambulation and faster recovery time. Such advanced high skill surgeries require intense training and good knowledge of the spine anatomy, which is intricate and fragile.
According to the press release, many patients travel outside the state to avail specialized spine surgeries at a high cost of more than Rs 3 lakh. Cost estimate of the same keyhole surgery performed in Nagaland was approximately Rs 60,000 only, which is 20% of the cost of surgery outside the state. Patients also save up on travelling, accommodation, fooding and other unforeseen expenses that they would have incurred if they sought treatment outside Nagaland, it added.
