Man's skeletal tumour treated through radiofrequency abalation

New Delhi, June 20: A 27-year old man with a skeletal tumour for years was treated with radiofrequency ablation to successfully remove the growth at a hospital here, doctors said on Monday.

According to the medical team, the short term follow-up reports of patient Rahul Jain revealed his excellent recovery due to which he was leading a pain-free life without the use of analgesics.

According to the hospital authorities, Jain initially often complained of on and off pain around his left hip for the past one year which usually worsened during the night.

While the symptom showed symptomatic improvement with analgesics, an MRI investigations revealed he had osteoid osteoma, or a benign (non-cancerous) but extremely painful skeletal tumour that tend to be smaller than 1.5cm in size and these does not spread to other regions of the body.

These tumours, though rare, usually occur in the young adults and males are affected three times more commonly than females. Also, they occur most commonly in the upper part of the thigh bone and the shafts of other long bones.

Doctors at the BLK hospital, where Jain was admitted, said that usually surgery is the definitive solution for such conditions but it has some drawbacks, including difficulty in lesion localisation, the need for extensive dissection as well a prolonged hospital stay due to additional recovery time and weakening of the bone.

"Therefore, after analysing the condition, the medical team zeroed on to use radiofrequency ablation, using the heat generated from medium frequency alternating current (in the range of 350-500 kHz) to melt the growth, to treat Jain," said Ishwar Bohra, senior consultant Joint Replacement and Arthoscopy surgeon at the hospital.

Bohra, who successfully removed the tumour, described the entire procedure as more recovery friendly than open surgeries because of the size and risk.

The common symptoms of an osteoid ssteoma are dull pain that gets severe at night, affecting sleep quality, limping, muscle atrophy, swelling, increased or decreased bone growth, etc.