There are very few centers around the world, where operations are performed with two gracilis muscles for complete paralysis of the brachial plexus. There are probably 5 or 6 centers in Europe, and about the same in the United States. These type of surgeries are more often done in Asia, especially in Japan – the country where this succession of operations was first performed. South Korea, Taiwan and China should also be mentioned “, explains Dr. Dragoș Zamfirescu, primary doctor in plastic surgery, aesthetics and reconstructive microsurgery, founder of both the Clinic and the Zetta Association.
Zetta Association is well-known for its countless national awards in the plastic surgery field, in the private medical servies sector. And, since its founding in 2017, adds to its porfolio today a new unique surgery in our country. If the price of such an operation would have costed between 6,000 – 8,000 euros, while abroad a patient diagnosed with brachial plexus paralysis would have paid between 150,000 and 200,000 euros, here, the patient was operated for free.
Case Study
Background: A 27-year-old man had a motorcycle accident back in 2012, he spent 6 months in resuscitation and almost 2 years hospitalized.
Patient diagnosis: brachial plexus paralysis.
Major risk: The blood vessels (1.5 mm caliber) to get clogged, leading to the death of the muscle and then the surgery would have been performed in vain.
The result: In such situations it starts from the fact that when you have absolutely nothing, even a small improvement means something. For many patients miracles are not always possible, but they can recover so that their upper limb can be functional.
“Today’s surgery is the third in a series of reconstructive operations on a patient done in stages, with a severe polytrauma that, among many other internal injuries, also had a complete avulsion of the roots of the brachial plexus. Before he came to us, the patient spent months in resuscitation and almost a year in an emergency hospital in Bucharest “, says Dr. Dragoș Zamfirescu. “Today’s stage was the one in which we tried to maximize the results of the other two previous ones. More precisely said, a free transfer of glacilis muscle was performed – the second free transfer of gracilis connected to the C7 root on the healthy contralateral side “, the doctor explains.
If the other two surgeries were related to the use of three branches of the intercostal nerves, the ulnar nerve graft vascularized at the contralateral C7 and a gracilis muscle for elbow flexion, this functional muscle transfer aims to increase the elbow flexion force and some finger flexion. “Which means, practically, that by tensing the healthy hand, the patient also tenses his hand on the damaged side”, continued Dr. Zamfirescu.
Dr. Dragoș Zamfirescu is a doctor in medical sciences, plastic surgery, aesthetics and reconstructive microsurgery primary doctor, with almost 21 years of experience in surgery. He has more than 8,000 surgeries under his belt, some of which being of great difficulty and nationally awarded.
In 2017, he founded the Zetta Association, through which he collects donations to finance operations performed on people with major problems such as tumors, trauma or paralysis. If, in 2019, he treated over 100 patients through his non-profit organization, in 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic, he dealt with about 50 cases. “The general principle according to which we choose our patients through the Zetta Association is that no patient with a major problem will be denied for financial reasons. On the other hand, the funds we raise are used for patients who have modest incomes”, he says.