Five-year-old Angeline Thompson made history at HealthPark Medical Center on Aug. 3 as the first patient to receive an expandable titanium femur.
Angeline, of Cape Coral, was taken to Pediatric Orthopedics of Southwest Florida in April 2007 with a possible fracture in her left femur. A biopsy revealed that she had Ewings sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.
During a 4-hour operation on Aug.3, Angelines cancerous femur was removed and replaced with a custom proximal femur manufactured by Stanmore Implants Worldwide, Ltd.
It was only the sixth time this procedure has been performed in the United States and approximately the fifty-third time it has been performed worldwide.
As Angeline grows, the Stanmore femur replacement can be expanded in a matter of minutes in a doctors office to keep pace with her other leg. The titanium femur is lengthened with a machine that emits electromagnetic waves and can be expanded at a rate of 1 millimeter every four minutes.
Angelines surgery would not have been possible without the help of Doug Letson, M.D., an orthopedic oncological surgeon who specializes in Ewings sarcoma at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, says Brett Shannon, D.O., a surgeon with Pediatric Orthopedics of Southwest Florida.
Five-year-old Angeline Thompson made history at HealthPark Medical Center on Aug. 3 as the first patient to receive an expandable titanium femur. 
