Rare knee replacement conducted on patient with Haemophilia

A 47-year-old hemophilic man underwent a rare bilateral knee replacement surgery.

Chikkanna, the patient, recovered to resume daily activities after the surgery. His severe condition of Hemophilia, a genetic disorder that leads to severe bleeding due to body's failure in clotting blood after an injury, made the bilateral knee replacement surgery difficult.

The patient was admitted with complaints of severe pain, difficulty in bending knees affecting his walking capability making it difficult to perform daily activities.

After evaluating and trying various medications, doctors concluded that a bilateral knee replacement was the only treatment. However, the haemophilia condition made this a rare and challenging case.

"The patient had severe haemophilia destruction of the knee joints which had affected his basic activities. There was an urgent need for knee replacement surgery," said Dr Narayan Hulse, Senior Orthopaedic surgeon and Additional Director of Orthopaedics, Fortis Hospital.

He added that generally knee replacement surgery is performed on people above the age of 60 but in this case, due to repetitive bleeding in the joints, they were damaged at an early age with severe disabilities. Only sensible way to help him was to conduct a knee replacement, said Dr Narayan.