This is the first such operation in the western regions of Ukraine. It was performed jointly by specialists from Lviv, Kyiv, and Ivano-Frankivsk, and operated by a joint team at the St. Nicholas Hospital in Lviv.
Bohdanchyk from Ivano-Frankivsk region is only 8 years old, and he is fighting a terrible disease for the second time. At the age of 3, he was diagnosed with liver cancer. Then the baby went a long way to recovery and underwent a complex operation to remove the tumor along with the gall bladder. Later, the boy went to school and developed like all other children. It seemed that everything was behind. But the disease overtook the child. This time the cancer affected the bone.
Once after school, Bohdanchyk complained to his parents about severe pain in his leg. Later, the limb was also swollen. The family immediately turned to doctors in Ivano-Frankivsk, who had previously treated their boy. Bohdan underwent all the necessary examinations and a biopsy confirmed the worst fears – cancer again. This time – Ewing’s sarcoma. This is a type of bone cancer that most often occurs in children and adolescents. Every year, it is diagnosed in 3 children out of 1 million.
The malignant tumor affected as much as 28 cm of the boy’s femur. In order to save his leg, it was necessary to remove the affected part and replace it with an implant. How to do this as best as possible – Frankish doctors consulted with colleagues from other cities of Ukraine. Together they prepared for the operation for six months. Meanwhile, the boy was receiving chemotherapy.
When it was time to operate, Bohdanchyk came to Lviv, to St. Nicholas Hospital. Here, surgeons, oncologists and traumatologists from Lviv, Kyiv and Ivano-Frankivsk combined their skills and efforts to save him.
The operation was difficult. First, specialists removed the tumor itself, and then performed an express biopsy to find out exactly how much bone needed to be removed. Kyiv engineers, who made a titanium implant for Bohdanchyk, prepared three variants of different lengths. All of them are printed on a 3D printer. They designed the implants for a month and another two weeks – printing.
After the biopsy, doctors removed the cancerous bone and installed the boy with an implant of the right size, which will grow with the child. The intervention lasted 6 hours and was successful. Bohdanchyk has already returned to Ivano-Frankivsk and is continuing his long-term treatment. Ahead of the boy are several courses of polychemotherapy and radiation therapy, as well as a bone marrow transplant.
The surgeons and traumatologists of St. Nicholas Hospital thank their colleagues from the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Children’s Clinical Hospital, the Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics in Kyiv, and the Kyiv City Children’s Clinical Hospital No. 2 for fruitful and successful cooperation. And we wish Bohdanchyk a speedy recovery.