Belarusian trauma surgeons successfully implement the Union State program for the treatment of children with severe spinal deformities

The Union State program ‘Spinal Systems’ for the treatment of children with severe deformities and injuries of the spine was developed by specialists from Belarus and Russia from 2017 to 2020. 

It has been successfully applied in Belarus for the eighth year already. The full name of the program contains an important clarification: ‘using prototyping technologies’.

In other words, before a complex metal structure is implanted into a young patient's spine, an exact copy of the affected part of the spinal column is created, and then the corrective system itself is created and adjusted to the ready-made model, unique in each case.  The special feature of spinal systems is that they ‘grow’ with the child, i.e. they can be made longer over time. 

The Spinal Systems alliance program is not only about diagnostic and treatment methods, it also includes the development and production of metal structures.

‘As a result of this program, we developed our own domestic metal structures. NPO Med biotech is our Belarusian company,’ says Kirill Krivorot, MD, PhD, a neurosurgeon of the highest category, deputy director of the RNPC T&E Centre for organizational and methodological work. - After installation of the spinal system, when the child grows up, we can do a small operation, specifically on this block, untwist it and extend the system’.

 

According to the RNPC T&E, in Belarus today there are about two hundred children with congenital anomalies of the spine and about 350 children suffer spinal trauma every year. About 1% of spinal cord injury requires surgical intervention.

From 2018 to date, 66 patients have been operated on under the Spinal Systems program in Belarus, and 70 surgical operations have been performed on them (note - four patients underwent two operations in stages).

The system makes it possible to radically change the patient's life. Given that severe spinal pathologies progress over time, this can affect both the development of internal organs and the ability to move, do hand work, etc.

‘This subsequently leads to severe disability of the patient, neurological pathologies increase. By applying spinal systems, we correct the deformity and improve the patient's quality of life,’ comments Kirill Krivorot. 

Leading researcher of the laboratory of spinal cord and spinal cord injuries and diseases, Candidate of Medical Sciences Dmitry Tesakov explains that the operation does not get rid of the existing diagnosis, they will continue to be prohibited any loads on the spine along the longitudinal axis.

However, the installation of the system allows not to aggravate the condition of the child, he will be able to attend kindergarten, school and further will be integrated into normal adult life without fear of moving into a wheelchair.

 ‘We work quite actively with our Russian colleagues both within the framework of the Union State programs and on the basis of personal professional contacts developed over years and decades,’ says Mikhail Gerasimenko, Director of the Republican Scientific and Practical Centre of Traumatology and Orthopedics, Professor, Head of the Department of Traumatology and Orthopedics of the Belarusian State Medical University.  - We have good professional relations with traumatologies from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Rostov and a lot of other Russian cities and research institutes. We are not confined solely to the Union State - many specialists, orthopedic traumatologies come to us from Central Asia for training, to master the new technologies that we are developing, such as in pediatric orthopedics, in endo prosthetics, in spinal surgery. And this shows that the level of Belarusian traumatologies and the level of NPC-traumatology orthopedics is quite high,’ he concluded. 

Today, allied medicine is working on a new program. ‘Spinal Systems-2’ will make it possible to solve the problems of patients with neuro-orthopedic pathology. These are children with cerebral palsy who develop orthopedic pathology requiring surgical intervention.