A surgical bone-lengthening technique and months of painful treatment will allow a Bolwarra, Australia, woman to undergo osseointegration (OI), and be fitted with a microprocessor-controlled prosthetic leg. This will be the first time someone has successfully had both the bone of a residual limb lengthened and a prosthesis fitted.
Marny Cringle lost her left leg above the knee after falling beneath a train on the London Underground in December 1996. The residual limb was initially too short to fit a prosthesis-until doctors carried out a treatment that lengthened the femur two inches. The procedure works by attaching tiny screws and then gradually adjusting them to encourage the bone to stretch and grow in minute increments.
Cringle’s OI surgery is scheduled for February 22 at Macquarie University Hospital, Sydney, Australia. As recovery is expected to take six to eight weeks, her prosthesis might be fitted as early as April.
Orthopedic surgeon Munjed Al Muderis, MD, FRACS(Orth), who will head the operation, described the procedure as “the future for amputee patients worldwide.”
