LAHORE – Tech Society Club organised a lecture on “Spinal cord diseases and their cure” here on Sunday.
On the occasion, renowned Orthopaedic Surgeon Prof Dr Amer Aziz revealed that some 800,000 new spine TB cases were reported every year worldwide out of which 38 per cent belong to South Asia only because TB was the disease of poor. “In Pakistan about 100,000 new patients are diagnosed whereas many die unreported,” he said.
Engr Abdul Majeed Khan, Zubair Sheikh, Engr. Mushtaq Bhatti, Dr. Muhammad Sadiq, Jameel Gishkori and Engr Mahmudur Rehman Chughtai also shared their thoughts.
Dr Aziz said that backache was one of the leading three problems of medical science. He said that 70 per cent population had to face backache at least once in life and 40 per cent of these develop sciatica or chronic back pain. “It is the 2nd leading cause of sick leave in working class after cold and flu and 60 per cent of working women over 50 years of age develop some disability due to this problem,” Dr Aziz added.
Dr Aziz said that he had successfully operated many patients of TB Spine. “We usually drain a lot of pus from these patients during surgery.
 “Most patients report horizontal and go walking,” he said.
Dr Aziz said that in recognition of the efforts of Surgical Department of Ghurki Trust Hospital, Pakistan Orthopaedics Association and AO Spine Switzerland recognised this centre as “centre of excellence” for Spine Surgery. He said but it is unfortunate that no Government support was provided to the department in this regard. He appealed the philanthropists to come forward and extend financial contributions to build the first Spine Centre in Lahore being constructed in Ghurki Trust Hospital. He claimed that it would be a unique spine centre among world’s top few institutes for the spine surgery.