Doctors at Fortis Hospital Vasant Kunj successfully treated a 40-year-old road accident victim from Iraq with cross-leg flap surgery – an over a century old surgical technique – as the newer and more sophisticated ones were not feasible due to the patient’s precarious condition.
The patient, who had undergone three unsuccessful surgeries in Iraq over eight months, was admitted with acute dislocation of the left knee joint and a severely infected, pus-oozing leg. A team of doctors led by Dr Dhananjay Gupta, Director, Orthopaedics & Joint Replacement Surgery and Dr Rashmi Taneja, Director, Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, thoroughly evaluated the patient. Investigations revealed that the patient’s affected leg had no intact blood vessel due to multiple injuries, which is necessary for reconstructive surgeries currently in vogue. The doctors then decided to perform the cross-leg flap surgery, a technique first described in medical literature in 1854.
