"The Witch of Children's Hands" returns to Vietnam

French doctor Stéphane Guero, known as the “Wizard of Children's Hands”, has returned to Vietnam.

From November 16 to November 27, Dr. Stéphane Guero examined 62 children and performed surgery on 12 children with highly difficult hand deformities at FV Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City.

There are 3 outstanding cases. NLL (3 years old), is a patient in a charity surgery program jointly operated by FV Hospital and Vinacapital Charity Organization. Since birth, his left hand has been missing the radius bone, the hand is folded inward, unable to flex and extend the arm. The thumb of his right hand is hypoplastic, the finger is only attached to the hand by a tiny piece of skin, so he cannot hold anything.

Dr. Stéphane Guero is examining a child patient.

Her family is very poor. In 2014, Dr. Stéphane Guero operated on baby L's left arm, using a splint and screws to fix the radius, so her hand was no longer folded inward and she could flex and extend her arm like a normal person.

On November 16, after examining baby L and consulting with Dr. Vu Hoang Lien (Orthopedic Trauma and Hand Surgery Department, FV Hospital), Dr. Stéphane Guero and his team of doctors performed the finger transfer surgery.

He said: “I used the index finger to turn it into a thumb for the baby, only shortening the bone of the hand at the index finger position, transferring the tendon and moving it to the thumb position, not cutting it off. The most difficult part of this case is that the patient is still young, the hand is as small as a doll's hand, the blood vessels, nerves and everything else are very, very small, just a lack of experience, not careful the surgeon can cut the tendons, blood vessels that nourish the finger and cause necrosis as well as poor movement later for the patient. And when changing position, pay attention to rotate the finger so that it fits the thumb position, the inside of the thumb can be pressed against the inside of the other fingers so that the baby can grasp…”. The surgery lasted 4 hours. Currently, baby L. is gradually recovering.

The second case is TCN (3 years old), born with a deformed hand, the fingers are bunched together to form balloon-like lumps. The lumps gradually grow as the child develops and the child's arm is almost immobile.

Her parents took her everywhere for medical examination and everywhere they were advised to amputate her hand to remove the tumor. On November 18, she went to see Dr. Stephane Guero and he concluded that the baby had a venous and lymphatic malformation, all the blood vessels in her right arm were abnormal.

He decided to use the Sonopet device to surgically remove the tumor on the inside and outside of baby N's hand, preventing the tumor from growing. Sonopet is a special scalpel system that uses ultrasound waves, allowing the surgeon to neatly remove the tumor, removing diseased tissue without invading the surrounding healthy cells.

This avoids damaging important components such as blood vessels and nerves, reduces the risk of bleeding and post-operative complications, and shortens the patient's recovery time... Currently, baby N has been discharged from the hospital, the tumor on the inside and outside of the hand has been removed, and she can now move her arm slightly.

Dr. Stéphane Guero said he would return next year to perform surgery to remove the tumor in the fingers and reshape them. Because the fingers were wrapped, the shape was not clear, but the child could still move them slightly, proving that the fingers had not completely lost their ability to function, so he decided to keep and reshape them instead of amputating them.

The third case is LTMT (4 years old), born with 4 abnormally short fingers on his left hand (except the thumb), each finger has only 2 knuckles so he cannot grasp normally. On November 23, after examination, Dr. Stéphane Guero decided to use the toe bone to attach the child's finger.

On November 25, Dr. Stéphane Guero and Dr. Vu Hoang Lien operated on the child by selecting and cutting part of the bones of the second and third toes of the left foot to match the bones of the child's middle and ring fingers (the two shortest fingers on the hand).

The doctors then attached this bone to the middle part of the selected finger, fixed it with a needle and shaped it into a new finger for the child. According to Dr. Stéphane Guero, it is estimated that after about 4 weeks the child will be able to move normally and with proper physical therapy, the child will quickly grasp with the hand that has just had the finger lengthened. Due to the family's financial difficulties, the child received support for the surgery from FV Hospital and the VinaCapital Charity Organization.

According to Baotintuc