As a featured guest, Dr. León Mora participated in the XV Congress of the Argentine Association for the Study of Bone Reconstruction and Lengthening (Limb Lengthening) in Rosario, Argentina, where new techniques and the main research on the subject were discussed.

Rosario was the venue for the XV Congress of the Argentine Association for the Study of Bone Reconstruction and Lengthening (Limb Lengthening), Asami 2014.

Five prestigious foreign guests participated, including Dror Paley, a doctor from Florida, United States, who has developed numerous corrective techniques for deviations of the lower and upper limbs, both congenital and post-traumatic.

In addition, Argentine professionals will give lectures who will present news about reconstruction techniques in this field of traumatology.

The audience will be made up of professionals, advanced medical students, and doctors in training in Orthopedics and Traumatology. There will be different levels and educational modules that will allow a dynamic exchange of knowledge, specified the specialist Martín D’Elía, president of the congress.

“The central theme will be the update of reconstruction techniques in congenital malformations of the upper and lower limb and also of post-traumatic and post-tumor sequelae. There will also be seminars on knee and hip preservation, current topics that seek to delay the placement of joint replacements and be able to do them at older ages,” he said.

The discussions and research on lengthenings (Limb Lengthening) are currently focused on the process that initially provided multiple aesthetic, functional, and social benefits but was very tedious for the patient and their family. In Argentina, the most emblematic case is that of Tomás Pasman, a boy who was born with a skeletal disorder known as dwarfism and who underwent surgery as a child by the surgeon from Rosario Gabriel Martínez Lotti, one of the pioneers in the use of these techniques in the country. Currently, Pasman has access to a good quality of life, more independent and active thanks to being able to “grow” 11 centimeters in each leg and 10 in each arm.

D’Elía mentioned that the advances in this area allow today’s experiences to be much more bearable for the patient and for all their surroundings.

At the congress, the doctor said, “new lengthening techniques (Limb Lengthening), presentation of new implants to perform the procedure such as the Precice nail that allows lengthening with an intraosseous nail avoiding the use of external fixators, which are very useful and versatile, but psychologically poorly tolerated by patients.”

What substantial changes have occurred in recent years in the discipline? “In addition to the emotional impact, there is a shorter external fixation time thanks to the fact that lengthenings are performed through intramedullary nails or plates, magnetic nails, and mini-invasive surgeries to increase the useful life of the knee and hip joints,” explained D’Elía.

The patients who can benefit from these techniques are those who were born with a congenital malformation of the upper and lower limb, patients with a hereditary influence on the premature wear of the hip and knee joints, and people who have deviations or shortenings as a result of post-traumatic injuries or tumor pathologies.

In these cases, most of the time the treatments are surgical. “In the last decade, a huge number of advances have allowed patients to be treated with mini-invasive or outpatient techniques that enable short postoperative periods and an immediate return to work or school life, maintaining or even improving historical functional and social results,” added the president of the congress.

Tomás’s story. Last year, Martínez Lotti, director of the Rosario Orthopedics and Traumatology Center (COT) and his patient Tomás Pasman presented a book they wrote together narrating the experience of the young man who was operated on several times when he was little. “What is the size of a great man?” addresses the problems of a boy who was born with short stature, but above all emphasizes the doctor-patient relationship, the prejudices that exist at a social level, and the struggle for a better quality of life.

Courses and seminars

The Asami 2014 congress begins today at the Ros Tower Hotel in Rosario and ends on Friday.

Featured guests include experts: Dror Paley, from the United States; Miguel Galbán, from Venezuela; Dante Parodi, from Chile; León Mora, from Colombia and Juan Carlos Bongiovanni, from Brazil.

The following conferences will also be held: surgical instrumentation and nursing; kinesiological rehabilitation in trauma, reconstruction, bone lengthening (Limb Lengthening) and hip preservation surgery.

The seminar “Hip preservation in adolescents and young adults” and the precursor “Planning of deformity correction” will also take place.

Those who want more information can consult the website www.asamiargentina.org. Source: http://www.lacapital.com.ar/contenidos/2014/08/06/noticia_0010.html