22 January 2004	Thursday	29 Ziqa'ad 1424

LAHORE, Jan 21: A Pakistani orthopaedic surgeon claims to have developed a bone grafting substitute and successfully used it to treat over 130 patients during the last two years.

Speaking at a news conference here on Wednesday, Prof Mohammad Tariq Sohail said he had conducted research for over six months and developed a 'bone grafting substitute' from indigenous raw material. He said he had conceived the idea at an international conference in Japan and had been working on the project since then.

A surgeon at the Postgraduate Medical Institute, Services Hospital, claiming that the bone grafting substitute was not being used anywhere in the world, Dr Sohail said he had treated all patients free of cost. He said he had no intention of launching the product on a commercial basis, but preferred to share it with the health department.

He said the success rate of bone grafting through this technique was about 90 per cent. He also said almost 40 per cent of those suffering from bone fractures required bone grafting. "This new technique will eliminate the concept of second operation of a patient to get the required bone for fracture grafting," he added.

He said filling of bone grafting substitute took about six months to completely help grow the fractured bones. Prof Sohail also showed slides to explain the process of bone grafting through the new technique. He said, the treatment was very cheap. "Each vial of bone grafting substitute costs around Rs20."