Doctors hope groundbreaking spinal cord surgery will help Arizona man walk again
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Doctors hope a Scottsdale man who severed his spine in a dirt bike accident will regain the ability to walk after becoming the first-ever patient to undergo a groundbreaking new spinal cord surgery.
Surgeons at the Barrow Neurological Institute implanted a scaffolding-like device that they hope will act as a bridge across the injured portion of Jordan Fallis’ spinal cord in an attempt to heal it, Fox 10 reported.
The 25-year-old lost all feeling below his waist, but aside from severing his spine did not sustain a head injury in the fall. Doctors determined he was the perfect candidate for the surgery, which thus far has only been performed on rats and monkeys.
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“What we did for this patient is really the first time that this has been done in a human being, which is implant a biosynthetic, biomaterial scaffold in the spinal cord,” Dr. Nicholas Theodore, chief of surgery at Barrow Neurological Institute, told Fox 10.
“The scaffolding acts as a conduit along which cells can grow and healing can occur. So it’s like an internal Band-Aid,” Theodore told 3TV.
The device is made of a complex sugar, rather than plastic, and dissolves on its own, according to 3TV.
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The surgery was performed in mid-October, and doctors are not sure when the feeling may return to Fallis’ legs.
“There’s no telling [if or] when you’re going to get feeling in your legs in six months, that’s not the case, nobody knows,” Fallis said. [
For now, Fallis has a routine of working out with both physical and occupational therapists as he and his doctors wait out the surgery’s results.
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Whatever the outcome, Fallis is optimistic about his return to the sport he loves.
“I love riding dirt bikes, sailing through the air, doing tricks. That is a passion of mine and I love doing it, so this isn’t going to stop me,” he told Fox 10.