20 Oct 2020
A dog rescued from Greece after British couple witnessed it being hit by a car has been given a new lease of life following a knee replacement.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
Rocco, having been injured on the streets of Athens as a puppy, has had a total knee replacement at Wear Referrals in County Durham.
Cross-breed Rocco has been given a new lease of life after a car collision in the form of a total knee replacement, performed at a County Durham hospital.
Neil Burton, head of orthopaedics at Wear Referrals, and certificate holder in small surgery Maciej Krukowski conducted the groundbreaking surgery.
A collision with a car when Rocco was a few days old left him increasingly lame in his left hindleg and unable to bear weight 50% of the time.
The dog, from Greece, was brought to the UK by a Northumberland couple who opted to own him after seeing him injured while on holiday near Athens.
They witnessed the car collision and took Rocco to a nearby vets.
Dr Burton said: “Rocco’s original fracture, which was treated by the surgeon in Greece, healed, but with a malunion of the femur, so the thigh bone was not aligned as it should be.”
Dr Burton added: “OA subsequently developed in the left knee joint – likely as a combination of the original trauma, the subsequent surgery and the malunion of the fracture.
“By the time I saw him, Rocco could only weight bear on the limb 50% of the time; there was also marked muscle wastage and he was in persistent pain despite being on pain-killing medication. That’s why I recommended we operate, and perform a cementless BioMedtrix total knee replacement to improve his comfort levels and mobility.
“The operation was successful, and Rocco was given physiotherapy and hydrotherapy treatment here at Wear to rebuild the strength in the leg that had been lost because of the years of discomfort due to OA.”
