Twenty-seven children in Ahmedabad, India, who had been suffering from complex spinal and upper extremity deformities, are better today thanks to a team of surgeons from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and bone grafts donated by AlloSource. For the second year in row, a medical team from the Pediatric Orthopaedic Department of the hospital traveled to India to offer crucial and complex surgeries at no cost to the young patients.
These were procedures that local surgeons were unable to offer the children because of the complicated nature of the problems and the high cost associated with them. The U.S. surgeons used the donated AlloSource bone grafts in the operations on the six children with complex spine deformities. Doctors said that without the surgery, the children with spinal deformities faced potential paralysis.
The Polio Foundation, a non-profit charity hospital in Ahmedabad, provided assistance during the spine surgeries—each of which lasted from six to eight hours. Local surgeons and anesthesiologists assisted with the procedures.
“Because of the hard work of the surgeons, donated tissue made a huge difference in the lives of these children, ” said Thomas Cycyota, president and CEO of AlloSource. “We are proud to have provided the bone grafts used in these procedures and we admire the dedication of the team from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.” The team plans to continue its annual trips to provide advanced medical care for pediatric patients in areas of need in India.
AlloSource is a non-profit company that offers more than 200 types of bone, skin, soft-tissue and custom-machined allografts for use in an array of medical procedures. Company officials say that AlloSource is the world’s largest processor of cellular bone allografts.
