URMC Surgeon Performs Successful Spinal Surgeries in Ethiopia
Dr. Addisu Mesfin (center), a spinal surgeon at URMC, stands with Drs. Hananiah and Abraham, of the AaBET Hospital in Ethiopia, where they performed life-altering spinal surgeries for patients in need.
Addisu Mesfin, MD, a URMC orthopaedic surgeon who specializes in spinal surgery, returned to his birth country in December 2017 to perform surgery at the Addis Ababa Burn Emergency and Trauma Hospital (AaBET) in Ethiopia. His trip was a medical initiative in cooperation with the Less Exposure Surgery (LES) Society. “I first went two years ago, in 2016, and I gave several presentations to the orthopaedic and neurosurgery residents and faculty,” he said. “I decided that when I went back, I should definitely do some surgeries. So I talked to the implant companies I work with [including SpineFrontier and Corelink], and they donated some implants.” Spinal implants are scarce in Ethiopia, where about 25 orthopaedic surgeons and neurosurgeons perform all of the spine surgery for a population of roughly 100 million people. AaBET is a trauma
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hospital similar to URMC’s Strong Memorial in Rochester, NY. “It’s a young population, so younger people get into car accidents, or they work in construction and they get injured. There’s a lot of trauma there,” Dr. Mesfin said. “They do urgent surgery there and the surgeons are very good. In that one week we treated six patients, and we donated several implants there that they can continue to use.” Assisted by Dr. Abraham, of St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College in Ethiopia, Dr. Mesfin treated burst fractures, cervical spinal cord injuries and performed anterior cervical fusions, laminectomy, and posterior fusion — all without the benefit of neuromonitoring, a specialty
In Motion | UR Medicine Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation | Fall 2018
not available at this trauma center. Interoperative neuromonitoring uses electrophysiological methods to observe the function of nerves, the spinal cord and brain during surgery, to be sure there is no damage to these structures. “It’s a lack of resources,” Dr. Mesfin explained. “In Canada, Japan, and other countries I have visited, they have neuromonitoring available once or twice a week. In Rochester, we have it every day. I’d prefer to have it, but we did well without it.” In particular, the surgeons performed a deformity correction procedure on a 17-year-old girl with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (above). “She’s a high school student and she was having pain along with the scoliosis. Her parents said she was getting depressed because of her appearance,” Dr. Mesfin said. “I told her, ‘You’re too old to brace, but we can do this surgery.” Using implants donated by medical device company SpineFrontier, the surgical team straightened the girl’s back, relieving her pain and changing her life for the better. “It’s a bit of a risky procedure, but it went well.” His next trip to Addis Ababa is planned for January 2019. “The patients and families were all very grateful for what we did,” he said. “It’s one of those things where I am itching to go back again.”