Prosthetic Paw Could Give Cat Second Life
Source: Topix.net 27601

George Bailey has never taken a step in his life, but that could soon change because of a groundbreaking surgery by North Carolina State University veterinarians.

The tuxedo cat was born a year and a half ago with only part of his hind legs. His owners said he made up in personality what he lacked in physical size. “George Bailey is the runt of the litter, so he’s very small. But he fights, knocks around. He doesn’t know he’s this little bitty runt,” Al Simmons said.

But the Simmonses wanted to make his life a little easier, so they called Dr. Denis Marcellin-Little at the N.C. State College of Veterinary Medicine to do something that had never been done before – attach a prosthetic paw to the cat’s actual leg bone.

The surgery is so rare it’s been performed on just 70 humans worldwide. [Text continued at site.]

This has some exciting implications for human medicine. Prosthetic limbs, while being a Godsend for almost all who wear them, are not easy to handle. They are also prohibitively expensive, to the point that most health insurance plans will only cover one prosthesis for any given limb in a lifetime. This obviously can create problems in the case of physical changes that affect the fit or usability of the prosthesis.

The insertion of a prosthesis such as this, designed to stimulate the growth of natural bone, would revolutionize prosthetic technology because the bones of natural limbs change along with other physical changes in the body. While this type of prosthetic surgery may still never completely replicate the actual limb (standard prosthetics do well, but there are significant differences), it holds much more promise for those in need of prostheses – particularly children.