I RECENTLY had the opportunity to talk to a doctor who treats children with cancer and I came to know of an unfortunate situation where children are losing their limbs due to lack of awareness of parents and doctors not routinely dealing with cancer.The paediatric oncologist shared the case of a 10-year-old girl from Afghanistan who lost her leg to bone cancer. The girl had pain in her lef t thigh for several weeks and a local orthopaedic surgeon performed an open biopsy of her tumour as opposed to needle biopsy. This basically meant that instead of using a needle to get the sample, the skin was cut open to reach the bone for testing sample. The little girl`s surgical wound did not heal. The wound edges were pulled apart by the tumour and the space was filled with pus.
By the time the girl made it to a tertiary care cancer centre, she had severe pain, an infected wound and swollen leg. Despite strong painkillers and antibiotics, there was little improvement in her wound. The choice then became between choosing the limb or the life of the child.
The girl finally had to undergo an amputation of the lef t leg. If the patient had had a needle biopsy of her tumour early on, she would have most probably qualified for receiving standard chemotherapy and that would have increased her chances of having her life and the leg saved.
