Bryonie's groundbreaking surgery

Spinal Surgeon, Dr Geoffrey Askin and a group of specialists at Mater Children’s Hospital (MCH) have performed a number of groundbreaking surgeries on eight-year-old Bryonie Smith, who has a congenital deformity of the neck and thoracic spine.

Without surgery, Bryonie’s spine would have continued to deform and eventually compromise her organs, so the spinal team developed a plan to correct her spine by releasing the deformity, followed by prolonged traction to improve the curve.

“In young children, like Bryonie, traditional methods of stabilising spine deformities are not recommended as the surgery will prevent further growth of the spine, and pose risks to spinal cord function,” Dr Askin said. “These procedures are complex and often involve multiple operations and prolonged periods of immobilisation in orthoses,” he said.

The multifaceted procedure involved breaking the affected bones to allow them to realign, applying a ‘halo ring’ with screws into the outer cortex of the skull, putting traction with weights of up to 30% of her body weight through the halo ring, and finally placing her in a specially designed ‘wheelie walker’ by GB Orthopaedics to allow her to move while in traction.

“Over time, the specially designed halo traction system will pull her spine into better alignment, giving Bryonie a stable spine and the satisfactory development of her heart and lung tissue,” Dr Askin said.