Annals of African Medicine Annals of African Medicine Society ISSN: 1596-3519 Vol. 6, Num. 2, 2007, pp. 84-86

Annals of African Medicine, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2007, pp. 84-86

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

A. A. Salako, T. A. Badmus, A. K. Eziyi and E. A. Agbakwuru

Urology Unit, Department of Surgery, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex, Ile-Ife, Nigeria E-mail: kayosalako@yahoo.com  

Code Number: am07023

Various forms of improvisation and innovations have been done in different aspects of surgery.^{1, 2} Pare’ improvised egg yolk to dress wound when hot oil ran out. ¹ In developing countries, improvisation has made surgical practice possible in many hospitals including the teaching hospitals. ^{3 - 5} Awojobi¹ in Oyo State, Nigeria use the gear system of a car to improvise for operation table and he also used the rear wheel of a bicycle to fabricate a heamatocrit centrifuge. One of the ways of making endourological procedures available and cheaper is by locally fabricating some or all the components.

We improvised an irrigation can and irrigation tube (Figure 1) with materials which are commonly available in Nigerian scrap markets. This has made it possible for large volume of clean water to be used during endourological procedures without intermittent interruptions as necessary when small volume infusion bags are used. The light cable suspension chain prevents kinking of the light cable when in use. This protects the fragile and expensive instrument from getting easily damaged.

With these improvised equipments a total of 64 diagnostic and therapeutic procedures had been carried out in our unit as at the time of this report. These included urethrocystoscopy, transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP), transurethral resection of bladder tumour (TURBT), direct visual Internal urethrotomy (DVIU), retrograde pyelography and nephroscopy.

The improvised materials have immensely facilitated our endourological practice. We recommend these materials to other hospitals in developing countries, where the imported materials are not available or too expensive to procure.

References

1. Awojobi OA. Principles of rural practice. Dokita (Nigeria) 1998; 25:161-162
2. Prabhu RD. Rural surgery. Indian J Surg 2003; 65:22-23
3. Flower CG, Badnoch DF, Thaker DR. Practical experience with flexible fibre-optic cystoscopy in out-patients. BJU 1984; 56: 618-621
4. Ogirima MO. An improvised active drain. Nigerian Journal of Surgical Research 2000; 2:161-163
5. Mbibu NH. Urethrocystoscopy without fibreoptic light source. Nigerian Journal of Surgical Research 2000; 2: 30-32

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