‘It’s like something out of science fiction’, is how Jan Ritson describes the remarkable surgery and NHS team effort that saved her leg – and her life.
The 71-year-old is recovering well after undergoing a 12-hour procedure that involved part of the bone in her lower leg being removed, transported to another hospital and treated with radiation and then re-attached, all while she was under anaesthetic.
The complex surgery involved three specialist consultant surgeons and multiple clinical teams from both the Golden Jubilee Hospital and Glasgow’s Beatson and is a first in Scotland.
Mrs Ritson was initially told she might lose her leg after she was diagnosed with a malignant tumour on her left tibia – the shin bone – during lockdown, her third cancer diagnosis after first being treated for breast cancer at 30.
READ MORE: NHS board closes all hospitals to visitors in bid to control rising cases of Covid-19
Due to the severity of the tumour, removing her leg would have been the simplest option.
However, despite initially believing it might be too risky given her age, the clinicians involved assessed that there was a good chance of saving it with the uncommon but scientifically proven procedure.
During surgery in August, an eight-inch section of Mrs Ritson’s tibia was removed and sent on a 20-minute journey to the Beatson in a sterile container.
After two hours of treatment with extra-corporeal (outside the body) irradiation the bone was re-packaged and brought back to the Golden Jubilee where the team was waiting to insert it back into place.
READ MORE: Bowel cancer screening to resume in Scotland
The surgery was led by Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon Ashish Mahendra of Glasgow Royal Infirmary, who has used the technique before for a small number of pelvic and hip tumours.
As well as treating the cancer, the radiation effectively killed the bone, meaning it would no longer receive a blood supply.
Bone from Mrs Ritson’s fibula was used to bring the tibia back to life.
Mrs Ritson is now recovering at home in Stewarton, East Ayrshire, with husband David, 71 and said: “It’s absolutely mindblowing what they have achieved.”
The grandmother-of-one was successfully treated for breast cancer when she was 30 and then for a recurrence of the disease at 50. She had stayed well for the next 20 years until she began to experience severe pain in her lower back in late April during lockdown.
READ MORE: 'It makes me so angry': Worry for former nurse as biopsies cancelled by Covid twice
She said: “At that time you couldn’t make an appointment with the doctor apart from a telephone appointment and I was given anti-inflammatories for sciatica.
"After about three weeks I thought, well this is not working.
“I managed to get an osteopath who had just come out of lockdown and he saw me and said this is not sciatica – I would go and get an X-Ray.
“Everything was put into place very quickly thereafter.
“Initially they thought there was no way I could take an operation like that because of my age but that was before I saw Mr Mahendra who was happy to try the operation because I’m fit and healthy.”
The surgery was captured on video and Mrs Ritson was able to watch the footage from her hospital bed.
“They showed me the part where they removed the bone and put it into the special box. It was a bit bizarre, an out-of-body experience.” she said.
The procedure would normally have been performed at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, but in April 2020 the sarcoma service was transferred to the Golden Jubilee to ensure the service could continue to treat patients throughout the pandemic.
Claire MacArthur, Director of National Elective Services at NHS Golden Jubilee, said:
“It takes enormous skill, planning and collaboration to do a surgery of this magnitude, even more so at this at this particular moment in time, so everyone involved deserves immense credit.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here