Photo Gallery - Medical
| PhotoGallery - Medical |
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Click on the title's below to see images and descriptions. Click a second time to "hide" the slide.
This was our Founder's right knee. It is an MRI image of the knee taken just before it was replaced. Huge 'holes' can be clearly seen; they represent the damage left behind by AVN. Note how the top-most edge of the lower bone (tibia) nearly disintegrated from AVN, and how the joint space was greatly reduced, causing a bone-on-bone siutation. Our Founder now sports three artificial joints: both knees and one hip.
"The x-ray on the right is of my original ankle fusion. The wire you see coming down is a bone stimulator. There is a boxlike unit placed insid your calf with a wire that runs down into your ankle. In this fusion they removed all the dead bone and replaced it with bone taken from my hip. They then inserted 3 large titanium screws to try to fuse the bone together. This fusion ultimately failed. The x-ray on the left is the ankle fusion revision surgery. This time there was even more dead bone. (only 5 months had passed between operations.)They removed all the previous inserted hardware, dead and grafted bone and replaced it with a synthetic and cadaver bone made into a paste like substance. They reinserted 3 more large titanium screws and also a steel plate that has 5 smaller screws holding it in place. Being there was little room left after all the hardware inserted, they removed the internal bone stimulator. I then had to wear an external bone stimulator for 10 hours daily for approximately the next 4 1/2 months. As with the original fusion you are casted and non- weight bearing for approximately 5 months." - Cindie  This is Diane's ankle. Hers was done in a manner to modify it so that she might have an ankle replacement one day. Diane says: "I don't have my pre-fusion xrays digitized but I just looked and most of those screws now are from the tibia-talus fusion (ankle fusion) performed Oct. 2004 or from the sub-talar fusion (talus fused to the calcaneous) performed about 3 years ago. I think just two of the screws in the xray now are from the trauma repair, because they pulled some of the original ones out to make room for the fusions. I was glad Cindy posted her photos too - I've seen a lot of fusion xrays by now and there are many versions. My fusion was done in a slightly different way than traditional fusions to allow the surgeon to theoretically implant an ankle replacement in the future, assuming the AVN ever goes away. (In the past fusion was the 'end of the line' - once done, an ankle replacement could not be done. Now they can retain the fibula and cut from the center, and it retains enough bone to allow the ankle replacement gizmo to be implanted. I thought that was very comforting to know the option was still out there.)"  This is a bone scan taken just before my left knee was replaced.
Note the right side of my body: the artificial hip and knee look like empty spaces in the film. Those are the metal and plastic components that you 'see'! Also, see the large spot on my right arm? That is the site of the isotope injection. The AVN in my elbow is just behind that spot, more to the left of it. Note spot in left elbow, more AVN. Look on the right side of my torso/spine: that's AVN in one of my ribs. You can clearly see bone cellular activity below the hip prosthesis, which an MRI later showed is a new site of AVN. You can see how bad the left knee was and how much bone was affected! Also, note spots of AVN in both feet and ankles. It doesn't show up well in this minimized picture, but if it were larger, you could see a grayish area within the dark black in that knee. That represents the actual, dead and 'missing' bone. Ditto for the areas just above my ankle areas (see how faint they appear). You can clearly see the AVN in my feet, with right foot being the worst. Both feet also have arthritis in them. Lower spine was so bad that one doctor thought I had bone cancer!MRI proved it to be spinal stenosis, with osteoarthritis forming in mid spine area. This scan is a good example of what a bone scan shows. Some other clues that the tech understands can help towards a diagnosis. I was told the dark areas on the sides of my pelvis were somewhat normal to see in a bone scan. In my case, they are very dark, indicating arthritis which an MRI later proved to be true. Marie (AVnrie)
This x-ray is from our member Cheryl D., from Australia. As you can see, Cheryl has had both
This is what our member, Joy's, trabecular rod implant looks like.
This is what Mark's hip looks like after the Birmginham Midhead Resection surgery.Mark lives in the UK, where this procedure was developed.
With so much bone weakened thanks to AVN, Michael V's knee required special rod implants attached to the prosthesis. His surgeon feels these rods will add more strength and stability to the new knee joint (as well as to his leg), and expects the artificial knee to last for two decades or more  This is Dianne L.'s newly resurfaced hip. With resurfacing more of the natural bone remains. Dianne was able to return to work in just 6 weeks. Her procedure was also the Birmingham Resurfacing technique, although it may look slightly different from Mark's (above). Dianne worked hard to be in as good a phyiscal condition as possible before her surgery, so her recovery phase is going along very well.
This is Lukas’s hip. These MRI films represent the left femural head with AVN covering the vast majority, but notice the bone has not lost shape integrity. Lukas had stem cell implants 2 weeks after this MRI.
This is an MRI plate (film) from Mark K. It shows bilateral hip AVN. As Mark points out, just one MRI plate cannot tell the whole story, as it represents just one view. The MRI forms images, one slice at a time, as it continues imaging through the layers of the bone. Mark recently had the stem cell implant procedure on his right hip. |
These new, porous implants will hopefully add stability to the bones. Of course, the truly big hope is that a total hip replacement can be avoided, if at all possible.
