Doctors from the Clinic of Orthopedics and Traumatology of the University Clinical Hospital in Wroclaw conducted the first in Europe and the second in the world transplantation of extensor apparatus in a patient with patella cancer.

Doctors could not use the standard treatment method, which is a tumor excision. It was necessary to reconstruct the whole extensor apparatus to allow the patient to straighten the knee joint, so we decided to transplant it – explains the head of the clinic, Prof. Szymon Dragan.

The grafting material came from a deceased donor. Doctors decided not to give the patient immunosuppressive drugs to not to weaken the body’s immune system. There were also fears that the dead bone grafted into a living knee joint will function properly. One year after the operation it is known that it was successful – the patient was able to return to work and is now fully fit.