Dimapur, May 10 (EMN): The first tubular microdiscectomy surgery was performed at Putuonuo Nursing Home, Kohima, by Naga spine surgeon Dr. Neilakuo Kire.
The surgery was performed on a 37-year-old farmer with long duration of 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. The keyhole surgery took one hour with near zero blood loss. The highlight of the surgery was that the patient was able to walk “pain free” within 24 hours of the surgery.
An alumni of JIPMER, Dr. Neilakuo Kire, completed his MS Orthopaedics from CMC Kolkata and Fellowship in Hand and Micro-surgery from Coimbatore. He pursued his Fellowship in Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery from Bombay Hospital, Mumbai. He was trained 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.
Advantages of “keyhole” or minimally-invasive spine surgery over “open” spine surgery included 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.
An update from Putuonuo Nursing Home stated that many patients travel outside the state to avail specialised spine surgeries at a high cost of more than INR 3 lakh. He added that the cost estimate of the same keyhole surgery performed in Nagaland was approximately INR 60,000 only, which was 20% of the cost of surgery outside the state. Patients also save up on travelling, accommodation, food and other unforeseen expenses that they would have incurred if they sought treatment outside Nagaland, the statement read.
