NC - Knee-replacement for Cyrano: tubby tabby 1st to have the surgery

A tubby tom cat has become the country's first ever feline to undergo knee-replacement surgery after vets ruled out amputating his cancer-stricken leg because of his size.

Cyrano, a 10-year-old kitty who weighs more than 20 pounds, has been helped by doctors and engineers at North Carolina State University after cancer left his left hind leg almost useless.

Surgeon Denis Marcellin-Little and university engineer Ola Harryssonare are at the forefront of osseointegration, a process in which a prosthetic limb is fused to a living bone.
---

Click to expand...

Although a British doctor carried out a full knee replacement on a cat crushed by a car in 2009, the surgery carried out by Marcellin-Little used materials more like those used for human operations.

'This is the most complex implant that NC State has made and really, in all honesty, that anyone has built for any situation that I know of,' Marcellin-Little, a French-born vet, told the Associated Press.
---

Click to expand...