Misonix announces that it has once again supported the Uganda Spine Surgery Mission organized by spine surgeon Dr. Isador Lieberman, from the Texas Back Institute in Plano, TX, by providing an ultrasonic BoneScalpel for use in a number of advanced spinal surgeries.
The Uganda Spine Surgery Mission was founded in 2006 by Dr. Mark Kayanja (originally from Uganda) and Dr. Lieberman with the purpose of providing advanced spine care to Ugandan patients afflicted by infectious, degenerative, traumatic and congenital spinal ailments.
The mission’s annual surgery schedule has grown steadily in volume and expanded in scope. For the first time it included three teams for spine surgery including long-time BoneScalpel users Dr. Isador Lieberman from Texas Back Institute and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Plano, TX, Dr. Paul Holman from Methodist Hospital Houston in Houston, TX,, Dr. Shane Burch from UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco, CA and Dr. Selvon St. Clair from The Institute for Orthopaedic Surgery in Lima, OH.
Hundreds of patients were screened at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital. The patients travelled from remote areas in Uganda, and in some cases from neighboring countries, often waiting for days with their families for the surgical teams to arrive. The surgeries themselves, complex enough from a medical perspective were routinely interrupted by hourly power outages, shortage in hospital supplies like oxygen and other surprises that took the team’s continuous ingenuity to complete their mission.
Misonix has supported the mission for the third consecutive year by donating the use of its ultrasonic BoneScalpel. The spine surgeons participating in this year’s mission valued the Misonix BoneScalpel for its ability to perform complex bone removal with high precision, reduced soft tissue trauma and reduced bleeding.
Dr. Holman explained, "Our patient population in Uganda typically includes children with advanced congenital and tuberculous deformities that require extensive osteotomies to adequately correct their deformities. Use of the BoneScalpel in this setting reduces blood loss because of its coagulative cutting mechanism and the reduction in time required to complete the necessary osteotomies."
Dr. Burch added, "In my view BoneScalpel’s main advantage is that it is efficient and I value the amount of bone graft one is able to harvest from the spine."