Last month, the Ilizarov Center neurosurgeons had 4 operations that have never been performed in Russia. One of them is only the second ever performed in the world. The first of this type was performed in France.

The first was a child of 3.5 years of age with a severe spinal deformity as a consequence of mucopolysacharidosis. The deformity compressed the spinal cord resulting in motor dysfunctions. The child had had bone marrow transplantation when he was 1year old and was admitted to our hospital in a poor condition as he suffered rejection of the donor marrow, and was on permanent administration of medicines. It took two weeks for our surgeons to plan narcosis and blood transfusion procedures in order to avoid risks during the intervention.

Francophony days at our institute on 16-26 March are focused on France’s culture, French works and ideas abroad, primarily through the French language, cooperation and relations with French-speaking countries in the field of orthopaedics.

March 29 - April 1, 2012
Antalya, Turkey
Seven surgeons from our Center have been preparing their presentation and will participate in the Symposium.  
Last year, Gazi university in Turkey signed a cooperation agreement on scientific and training activities with our Center.

Visit http://www.turkish-russianilizarov2012.org/index.php?page=anasayfa&lang=en

Leonid M. Roshal, a noted pediatrician from Moscow, expert for World Health Organization, chairman of the International Charity Fund to Help Children in Disasters and Wars, visited Kurgan and met with Kurgan medical public at a meeting held at the Ilizarov center that gathered 400 medical workers. Roshal has been leading the Emergency Surgery & Children's Trauma Department of Moscow's Pediatric Scientific Research Institute since 1981. In 2003, he also took over the Moscow Institute of Emergency Children's Surgery & Traumatology, which is currently treating 60,000 children a year.
The meeting took a decision to establish a regional medical chamber to defend the rights of doctors and patients, and take mutual efforts to bring the national medicine to a high quality level. Vladimir Chernov, director of the Kurgan center for gastroenterology, was elected chairman of the Chamber.

XIII Congress of AOLF was held in Dakar (Senegal) from January 10 to 14. The Ilizarov Center delegation was 9 doctors, and 5 among them got awards from the organizing committee that covered their travel and accommodation.   
Our team made presentations that reported about the activities of the Center. Alexander V. Gubin, Center’s director, and Dr. Mikhail Danilkin lectured on cervical spine pathology treatment and management of foot and hand conditions with the Ilizarov method. Prof.  Anna M. Aranovich and Yu.P. Soldatov were co-chairmen at scientific sessions. Moreover, the team made 10 oral presentations, 13 posters and 2 master classes on the Ilizarov techniques used for various types of pathology.
Further cooperation was also discussed. Prof. Si from Dakar university held talks about the training of Senegal’s specialists at our Center. Similar proposals were outspoken by Algerian and some other African specialists.
The Center has trained African surgeons from Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria. It has been planned that the team from the Center will hold a training course in Algeria in May.
The big medical congress was concluded by the ceremony of transmitting the Congress medal to the Ilizarov Center as the next AOLF meeting will be held in St. Petersburg in 2014.

The Healthy carriage started on 7 November 2011. Community dwellers of 24 districts were examined by the team of our orthopaedic center. The action was free and was supported by the healthcare department of our region. Alexander Karpov, head of healthcare department of the local government, initiated additional radiographic and ultrasound examination in local hospitals.

The photo contest The world I live in was dedicated to the 40th anniversary of our Center and the participants were its workers.
The jury were professional photographers, but any person was invited to vote for the Audience Choice shot.

Photos of the 50,000^th patient have been registered in the photo archives of our Center just soon after the Center’s 40^th anniversary date which was celebrated on 8 December 2011.

Since 1968, taking photos of each admitted to the hospital patient has been an obligatory procedure. The rule was introduced by G.A. Ilizarov as a confirming illustrative material of the developed surgical interventions and treatment that can be used for presentations, scientific papers and theses. Each patient is given a reference number that is used for taking photos before, during and after treatment. The same identification number is used if a patient comes for continuing his/her treatment at another stage. The 50.000^th patient is Svetlana Rozyaeva that will be treated at the Department 12 for hand pathology as she has suffered a fracture in the hand that has been maluniting.

Ceremony dedicated to 40-th anniversary of the Center

The RISC for RTO started its activities as an independent orthopaedic institution on 8 December 1971 and became known in the world as KNIIEKOT (Kurgan Research Institute for Experimental and Clinical Orthopaedics and Traumatology).

The jubilee ceremony gathered guests and center’s staff to speak about developments, their significance and future plans.

Pochta Rossii (Post service of Russia) has issued a special envelope with the Center’s symbols available at its post officies.

Mikhail Kovinka, senior researcher of the clinical and experimental laboratory department, presented the findings of the department research at the annual 86^th Congress of SOFCOT (France). His presentation was Experimental Substantiation of organic preparations application for repair of comminuted tibial fractures with the method of extrafocal osteosynthesis. In other words, the laboratory reported about the possibility to accelerate fracture repair using organic materials that are extracts from bone tissue processed in the laboratory conditions and injected into the fracture site. The results of the experiment showed a 2-fold acceleration of fracture healing. But the findings need to undergo several trials in order to be brought into clinical practice. A lot of congress delegates showed interest in the technique and even asked about the possibility of purchasing the materials.

The center’s participants also presented 7 posters. The SOFCOT organizing committee conferred awards to 5 of our delegates.

The film of RISC on the problem of periprosthetic infection and ways of its management at the purulent osteology department of our Center took the first place in the contest of educational documentaries.

Several delegations held talks with our representatives on running the Ilizarov method training courses in the countries of their residence.

AOLF (the Association of French speaking orthopaedic surgeons) discussed their future congress in Senegal. The Association will hold its first Russian congress in Saint Petersburg in 2014 and the Russian delegation reported on its preparation.