Recently, Lucknow's eminent King George's Medical University (KGMU) has been in the news for its successfully-carried reformative surgeries, wherein an Uttarakhand school teacher walked home with a recovered and reconstructed face.

It had been deformed due to a rare disease, Black Fungus or mucormycosis, where flesh-eating fungus had disfigured his right eye, facial bones, teeth and part of his upper jaw. Due to the same, 56-year-old Sukeshvar Verma was unable to eat, speak, drink, etc. "The appearance was badly affected and facing people and society was a big challenge," explained Dr Sudhir Singh, spokesperson of KGMU.

Similarly, the KGMU doctors are also being extolled for recreating a 23-year-old woman's hand.

These reformative surgeries were conducted by the doctors of KGMU's Prosthodontics department. Head of department, Professor Pooran Chand, explained, "The woman had lost all the fingers of her right hand when it was chopped off half-palm in an accident. The accident had impacted her psychologically by the time she came to us."

The hand was recreated by using 3D imaging, where with the help of the left hand, a life-like artificial right hand was created. Prosthetics 3D printing is, basically, the utilisation of 3D printers to design and, in turn, create artificial body parts.

"The entire left hand, including the palm, each finger and nails were copied. The right hand was then made with silicon (orbital prosthesis which was coloured using digital spectrophotometry), matching the skin colour and thickness of the fingers too," added Prof Chand.

"Though non-functional, the artificial hand has given her a lot of confidence. We are working on many patients making use of 3D imaging and reforming a lost part of the body. Many patients come to us after major surgery that causes loss of body parts such as jaws," he said further.