• Submitted by: admin
• Health and Medicine
• 09 / 25 / 2006

Cuban orthopedic doctors showed the efficiency of external fixators, known as RALCA, used on Pakistani victims of the October 2005 quake during the last session of an International Orthopedics Congress, that ended this weekend in Varadero.

A group of fifteen Cuban doctors who assisted Pakistani victims described their professional experiences during their mission in that Asian nation.

Doctor Alberto Delgado told about their success applying the external fixators, in a dozen tent hospitals deployed in Pakistan where more than 60 Cuban specialists offered their services. He said the body parts most affected were the legs, with exposed fractures. RALCA fixators were successfully applied to join fractures on long bones and on hips.

This new orthopedic technique has been developed in Cuba since 1971 thanks to its creator Doctor Rodrigo Alvarez Cambra, who is the president of the Cuban Society of Orthopedics and Traumatology.

During the last session of the congress, Maurice Hisenkamp, secretary of the International Society of Orthopedic Surgery, SICOT, gave Doctor Alvares Cambra a diploma recognizing his scientific contribution to world orthopedics.

Some 300 delegates and 70 personalities from 10 countries participated in the congress, including professors William Stentson, from California, Jose Maria Altsench, from Spain and Mario Castellanos, from Mexico.

The event's closing session on Saturday was attended by the first secretary of Cuba's Communist Party in Matanzas province. Organizing committee officials announced that the venue of next year's International Orthopedics Congress will be the western Cuban province of Pinar del Rio.

Source: ACN