March 9, 2011
School of Medicine, Kochi
 

In the recently concluded fourth annual conference of the Gujarat Society of Head and Neck Oncology (G-SHNO), Dr. Mayuri M. Rajapurkar of the Department of Head and Neck Surgery and Oncology at the Amrita School of Medicine won several honors.
 

She won the awards for the best paper and the best poster; the former was conferred for her paper titled Orbital Floor Reconstruction in Maxillectomy and the latter for a poster titled The Preserved Eye in Malignant Sinonasal Tumors.
 

Dr. Mayuri’s award-winning paper evaluated functional and aesthetic outcomes of orbital floor reconstruction after maxillectomy.
 

Maxillectomy, the surgical removal of the upper jaw bone, becomes more complex when critical structures such as orbit, globe and cranial base are resected. In such cases reconstruction with distant tissues is essential.
 

The paper analyzed the cases of 65 patients who underwent maxillectomy with orbital floor removal for malignant lesions involving maxilla. The morbidity profiles, functional and aesthetic outcomes of orbit were studied.
 

“My sincere thanks are due to Dr. L. M. Chandrasekhara Rao, a colleague at the department who worked hard to analyze the data presented in this paper,” acknowledged Dr. Mayuri.
 

Dr. Mayuri’s award-winning poster poster studied the oncologic and functional outcomes of the preserved eye in malignant sinonasal tumours with orbital involvement.
 

It presented the results of a study conducted on forty-three patients who underwent maxillectomy with or without craniofacial resection for malignant sinonasal tumours with orbital involvement. Twelve of the forty-three patients had orbital exenteration at surgery.
 

In patients where the orbital contents were preserved, there was good local control of the tumor with recommended adjuvant treatment. Only 3 cases had a recurrence in the orbit. In the remaining 16 cases, the functional outcome was excellent in terms of preserving binocular vision with minimal postoperative morbidity and good cosmesis.
 

None of our patients had a painful non-functional red-eye, as is commonly believed to result after such a surgery and adjuvant radiation. The absence of diplopia and maintenance of globe position with full range of motion in the series was due to adequate immediate reconstruction of the orbital wall defect.
 

Dr. Mayuri joined Amrita in 2008. After obtaining her MS in ENT from Medical College, Baroda in 2005, she served as Assistant Professor of ENT at P. S. Medical College, Karamsad, Gujarat. Subsequently she worked as Clinical Research Fellow at the Head and Neck Services of Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai.
 

Currently, Dr. Mayuri is pursuing her MCh in Head and Neck Oncology at Amrita. We congratulate her on her double achievement.