Patna: IGIMS conducts rare ear surgery successfully

PATNA: A major bone bridge implant surgery was successfully performed in the right ear of a seven-year-old child at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) here on Friday under the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK), a government of India programme.
The child, a resident of Danapur, was suffering from congenital disease in which his both ears were deformed.
A team of doctors of the ear, nose and throat (ENT) department headed by Dr Rakesh Singh performed the hour-long surgery involving bone bridge implant beneath the skin in the right ear of the child.
He said, “The child had 80 decibel conductive hearing loss bilaterally with microtia of both pinna. A normal healthy person should have below 20 decibel hearing level. In simple terms, the child was suffering from hearing impairment.”
Singh said it was probably the first time in the entire country that such a major ear implant was done in any government hospital under the RBSK. The child’s father, Sanjiv Kumar Pandey, said the expert hands of surgeons and the RBSK helped revert his son’s heath status from being hearing impaired to normal one.
The ENT department of the IGIMS had in the past conducted several complicated surgeries like cochlear implant and skull base surgery. Singh said this surgery, made free of cost, would cost anywhere from Rs 10 to 15 lakh in private hospitals.
Dr Sujit Sinha, nodal officer of the RBSK said about 15 surgeries of congenital diseases, including those of heart, brain and bones, have been conducted within six months under RBSK at IGIMS.