Dr. Vikram Shah and his team at Shalby Hospitals in Ahmedabad performed a knee replacement surgery on both knees of a 60-year-old Sudanese woman weighing 165 kg. Mrs. Samia Ahmed is from Khartoum, Sudan’s capital. Her husband is a businessman, and her son and daughter are both doctors. Another son is a medical student in Egypt. In 2005, she was diagnosed with elephantiasis, often known as elephant leg illness. The affected person’s legs and limbs expand abnormally in this unusual illness spread by mosquitoes. She began to gain weight quickly because of this disease.
Our knees and hip joints bear the weight of our bodies. Obese people’s knees and hips are strained as a result of their weight. Thus, knee osteoarthritis (arthritis of the knee joints) is a prevalent ailment among persons who are extremely obese. Mrs. Ahmed had already had two leg fractures. She broke her lower third tibia (bone just above the ankle) in her right leg in 2012, and her proximal tibia (bone just under the knee) in her left leg in 2015. She has already undergone five orthopedic surgeries for them. Two of them were completed in Sudan, two in the United Arab Emirates, and one in Egypt. She had been bedridden for several months and could only move around with extreme agony and acute pain in her knees. This case is exceptional because of her history, trauma, and significant obesity, which caused her knee joints to become profoundly arthritic and so damaged.
At a press conference organized at Krishna Shalby Hospitals in Ahmedabad Shalby’s team of surgeons and talked about this case in detail. The patient and her sons were also part of the conference. Shalby’s team at the conference included Dr Vikram Shah, World-renowned Joint Replacement Surgeon and Chairman & Managing Director of Shalby Hospitals, Dr Nishita Shukla, Group COO of Shalby, Dr Bharat Gajjar, Global OPD Director, and Shalby’s senior surgeons Dr Srirang Deodhar, Senior Joint Replacement Surgeon, Dr Ashish Sheth, Senior Joint Replacement Surgeon and Dr Jayesh Patil, Senior Orthopedic & Joint Replacement Surgeon.
Dr. Vikram Shah, who headed the team of surgeons who performed this extremely difficult procedure at Shalby, said, “People claim that knee replacement is not advisable in excessively obese individuals. This, I believe, is a myth. In 2010, we performed knee replacement surgeries on both legs of a 162 kg Jodhpur patient. He is currently 83 years old, and none of his legs have any knee related issues. Mrs. Shamisuddin’s knee replacement surgery was likewise a success. She will be able to walk now, which will increase blood circulation, and in turn, help reduce the intensity of her elephantiasis. Obesity and knee osteoarthritis are inextricably linked. Because obesity limits people’s activity, they tend to gain more weight, exacerbating the illness. They can walk after the knee replacement, which helps them lose weight and results in overall better health for the patient.”
