Report Paul Murphy
A medical pain specialist with strong Navan and Trim connections is at the heart of a ground breaking operation which enabled a 20-year-old man paralysed in a road crash to walk again. The operation was carried out on Mayo student Yousaf Ghaffar by consultant pain specialist Professor Kirk Levins at St Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin in collaboration with the National Rehabilitation Hospital and researchers from the United States. His mother, formerly Eleanor Fagan, is “a proud Navan woman” and among a wide circle of relatives was the former Irish Times journalist, the late Jack Fagan.
Professor Levins, pictured above, himself grew up in Dublin but has lived all over the world. He is a consultant across three hospitals – St Vincent’s University Hospital, the National Maternity Hospital and, the National Rehabilitation Hospital. In an interview with Meath Live Prof. Levins ranges over a number of topics including, not least, the operation which saw his young patient who has been able to walk 400 steps at a time with an aid since his operation last September, giving him “a second chance” at living a fuller life again.
Yousaf Ghaffar with Professor Kirk Levins some of the medical team
The technique used in the operation, which has yet to be named, involved inserting rigid leads through an epidural needle to stimulate the spinal cord at a specific frequency and location. Medics have been trying for years to restore movement in paralysed patients by doing “quite large surgeries” and in every other technique that was used up to now involved opening the spine and laying the electrodes down. In contrast, Professor Levins injects the electrodes in. This is the first time this technique has been used anywhere in the world and this is the first time there has been a return of sensation in the patient.
He came up with the technique in conjunction with a neurosurgical team in the United States. “When we inject the leads in it gives us more freedom as to where we will place them but there were a lot of concerns around the world as to whether it would work, or that the energy
requirement would be so much higher than the device could handle.”But when my local team examined the energy required we found that that wasn’t the case”, he said.
As a result of the case involving Yousaf, Professor Levins has had invitations from medical centres around the world to teach their doctors how to perform the technique. Yousaf had his accident two years ago and has been using a wheelchair since then. The technique used by some medical professionals in opening up the spine carried high surgical risk – the Levins technique, while carrying normal risks in any operation, is simpler and has lower risk to the patient.
He says that Yousaf himself is delighted with the outcome and has described it as “life changing”. Meath Live raised with Professor Levins the case of the film actor and comedian who was known for throwing himself around the set in tortuous contortions and who damaged his spine very badly in the process.
Professor Levins with Yousaf in theatre.
Although far too young to have any knowledge of Lewis, Levins was very familiar with the surgical technique used in Lewis’s case where an implant in his spine was used to block pain signals reaching his brain. It gave Lewis a more comfortable existence in his later years. “That
technology has been around since 1968”, the surgeon said, “now my focus is on finding novel ways to use existing technology to treat a variety of conditions. I am also the national clinical lead for pelvic pain in women and as such regularly use spinal cord stimulation for management of treatment resistant pelvic pain including pain as a result of endometriosis”.
0In an unusual “reverse gear” in his career, Levins first qualified as a chemist, went to the US to do some research, and then worked for big pharma companies in the UK but then went back to university to study neuroscience before going off to the Czech Republic to study medicine.
How does he rate the resources in Ireland for research in his field. “Within the field of pain medicine it is very difficult to get the necessary funding in order to carry out research. I have research support from different sources and the research for this [technique] was partly supported by Boston Scientific”.
Is it hard to source Government/public funding in Ireland? “Yes, very hard. While there is some funding available through research bodies like Science Foundation of Ireland and the Health Research Board, it is typically difficult to get and takes a considerable length of time. The big pressure is on my time – I often have zoom meetings with teams around the world very late at night or very early in the morning.
Since I released news of this surgery to the research community neurosurgical teams in the UK, USA, Australia, and across Europe have been contacting me pretty much on a daily basis to go over and teach them and give talks about what I’ve done”. He had remained very quiet about the technique because he wanted to see how it would turn out but now he has been invited to multiple centres around the world.” In a way the whole thing has put Ireland on the map”.
