New Zealand’s first, and to our knowledge, only hemicorporectomy was carried out at Waikato Hospital. BI was a 55-year-old female with intractable pelvic osteomyelitis. She is a T4 paraplegic from a motor vehicle accident in 2008. Reconstructive options for her pressure sores had been exhausted and BI had recurrent hospital admissions for pelvic sepsis. Hemicorporectomy was considered the only curative option.
A multi-disciplinary team was assembled including senior staff from the departments of general surgery, orthopaedic spine, urology, gynaecology, vascular surgery, neurosurgery, ICU, infectious diseases and anaesthesia. Also involved were theatre nursing staff, theatre management and the Allied Health Department.
The initial plan to carry out a practice procedure on a cadaver was abandoned due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Under the leadership of Mr. Win Meyer-Rochow, a number of meetings were held to talk through the stages of the procedure.
At a Plastic Surgery level, none of the team had been involved in a hemicorporectomy previously. Journal articles were reviewed, the team discussed the appropriateness of the procedure and the technical aspects were planned.
We present the limited available literature on this topic, the key decision-making, the practicalities of performing this procedure, and the post-operative results.