The technique used at the Regina Margherita hospital in Turin consists in connecting, like electric wires, the healthy nerves with the paralyzed ones to restore motor function. The expert’s opinion: it is still too early to understand the effective recovery of the child
And almost 2-year-old boy, suffering from acute flaccid myelitis about eight months ago, underwent an innovative surgery at the Regina Margherita children’s hospital in Turin to restore the function of the paralyzed right lower limb.
What is acute flaccid myelitis
Acute flaccid myelitis is a very rare neurological condition, similar to poliomyelitis, which can predominantly affect young children, generally after a flu attack, as occurred in the case of the operated child. It manifests itself with a muscle weakness up to cause the paralysis in art
i. The triggering causes remain unknown; it is hypothesized that it could be due to a virus that attacks the nervous system, in particular the gray matter of the spinal cord, damaging the nerve cells that transmit motor signals to the muscles.
The innovative intervention
To bypass the neurological damage at the medullary level, surgeons have used an innovative technique which consists in connecting, like electric wires, the healthy nerves with the paralyzed ones of the thigh and buttock, so that they can give an electrical impulse to the injured part, then restore motor function in the affected areas. According to reports from the Citt della Salute hospital in Turin, which includes the Regina Margherita children’s hospital, the operation was successful even if the recovery of motor function requires many months of rehabilitation.
Expert opinion
Comments Professor Luigi Piccinini, head of the Functional Rehabilitation Unit at the IRCCS (Institute for Scientific Hospitalization and Care) Medea di Bosisio Parini (in the province of Lecco): an important step forward in the neurosurgical field for the treatment of flaccid myelitis acute but still early to understand, from a functional point of view, what the effective recovery of the child will be. Definitely – continues the specialist – from a neurophysiological point of view (with the evoked potentials ndr) will have been encountered reinnervationbut it will have to understand how the child will use reinnervation, i.e. whether there will be a positive functional outcome regarding walking, motor control of the lower limbs and, moreover, other factors that will be part of a rehabilitation project that will be very long will have to be considered, as reported by the Città della Salute itself.
June 17, 2023 (change June 17, 2023 | 20:25)
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