Anastasia can stand again after rare surgical procedure

Anastasia Galinsky, a young 32-year-old woman from Haifa, arrived at Hillel Yaffe’s Orthopedic Oncology Unit after having being diagnosed with advanced bone loss of her femurs. This was the result of her kidney disease, which causes increased calcium absorption from her bones. The bone loss led to the shattering and collapse of the right femur, and the left femur was in immediate danger of breaking. Due to her condition, Anastasia was bedridden and unable to move, since any movement caused her severe pain.

At first, she underwent extremely complicated surgery to completely replace her right femur, and was operated on by Prof. Jacob Bickels, Director of the Orthopedic Oncology Unit at Hillel Yaffe. The broken bone was replaced by a made-to-measure metal implant. Around a week and a half later, Anastasia underwent further surgery and her left femur was also replaced by a metal implant. The two procedures ended very successfully, and Anastasia was hospitalized in the Orthopedics Department for recovery and rehabilitation, and received professional, meticulous, and devoted medical care from specialists from several hospital departments, such as dialysis, endocrinology, the ENT Unit, Orthopedics, and the Pain Unit.

Anastasia Galinsky and Prof. Jacob Bickels in the Hillel Yaffe Orthopedics Department

Thanks to this comprehensive treatment, just a few days after surgery she began to gradually stand up and even walk in the department corridor. She was discharged from the medical center and will undergo rehabilitation together with dialysis treatments. She is expected to eventually undergo a kidney transplant.

Until now, metal implants have been used only in cases of diagnosed tumors. Today’s innovative surgical abilities can make it possible at times to even treat radical situations caused by non-neoplastic diseases, such as in Anastasia’s case.

“Anastasia arrived at Hillel Yaffe in a very serious condition, in terrible pain, and totally unable to function. We were forced to find a suitable creative solution for her complex situation,” said Prof. Bickels. “This was a rare and exceptional case in which both femurs were replaced in one patient, who had to undergo two complex surgeries that required long periods of rehabilitation and recovery, after her bones had been destroyed by the kidney disease from which she suffers, not by a tumor of the limbs,” concluded Prof. Bickels.